
^m-^: 




x ... 



the: (\ . \^^ ^ 




EBOOK 



Containing an Account of the Foundation and History of 
the Prize, the Successful Orations, and a Com- 
plete List of Subjects and Competitors. 



EDITED BY 



MELVIN GILBERT pODGE, B. A., 

Librarian and Assistant Professor in Hamilton College, 



AND 



DANIEL WYETTE BURKE, B. A., 

Assistant Librarian ^.nd Graduate Student in History. 



CLINTON, N. Y. 

PUBLISHED BY THE EDITORS 




CI ^\ 



Copyright, 1894, 

By M. G. Dodge and D. W. E. Burke 

in the office of the 

Librarian of Congress. 



L. C. Childs &" Son, 
Printers and Binders, Utica, N. Y. 



EDITORS' NOTE. 

THIS volume of Clark Prize orations will be wel- 
comed by all Hamilton alumni as a means of renew- 
ing some of the most pleasant associations of college 
life. It will also have some value from an educational 
point of view. 

It has been impossible to procure the successful ora- 
tions of 1855, 1857 and 1892, which we much regret. 
The prize takers for these years were John E. Burke, 
Herrick Johnson and Gregory Rosenblum, We have 
thought it best to use by substitution in the first two cases 
the only orations for those years found in the College 
Library. No oration appears for the year 1884, as there 
was no contest by that class. 

We wish to express our hearty thanks to Chancellor 
Upson, Professors Frink, Hoyt and Smith, for their gener- 
ous and welcome contributions to the volume. The three 
former made the contest what it is, a glory of Hamilton ; 
to the latter, with Professor Scollard, is left the duty of sus- 
taining the work in its integrity. 

The Editors. 



CONTENTS. 

Editors' Note, ...... iii 

Introduction. . . . . . 9 

The Clark Prize in Hamilton College, N. Y.: 

Its Early History, Hon. Anson J, Upson, D, D., LL. D., 

Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, . 9 

1872 to 1885, Henry A. Frink, Ph. D., Professor of Logic, 

Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Amherst College, . 20 

1886 to 1891, Rev. Arthur S. Hoyt, D. D., Professor of 
Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology in Auburn Theo- 
logical Seminary, ..... 26 

The Men who Spoke, Brainard G. Smith, M. A., Professor 

of Rhetoric and Oratory in Hamilton College, . 30 

Exhibition of 1855, 

The Imagination as a Means of Napoleon's Success, W. B. 

Fairfield, ...... 37 

Exhibition of 1856, 

The Legacy of Rome to the World, Franklin H. Head, . 45 

Exhibition of 1857, 

The Position of Patrick Henry in American History, 

George M. Diven, ..... 52 

Exhibition of 1858, 

Unconscious Influence, Frederick D. Seward, . $9 

Exhibition of 1859, 

Moral Principle a Condition of Mental Power, Harlan P. 

Lloyd, ...... 71 

Exhibition of i860, 

Memory as a Retributive Power, John R. Lewis, . . 82 

Exhibition of 1861, 

Representative Poets, James S. Greves, . . 96 



VI 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 



Exhibition of 1862, 

The Power of the Youthful Spirit, Charles L. Buckingham, 106 
Exhibition of 1863, 

" Paradise Lost" and the " Divine Comedy," Horace P. V. 

Bogue, . . . . . . 115 

Exhibition of 1864, 

The Providence of God in American History, Henry M. 

Simmons, . . . . . . 124 

Exhibition of 1865, 

Opinions Stronger than Armies, Luther A. Ostrander, . . 134 

Exhibition of 1866, 

The Position of Holland in History, Charles S. Millard, . 144 

Exhibition of 1867, 

The Legacy of the Federalists, Sidney A, Sherwin, . 154 

Exhibition of 1868, 

The Achievements of the American Navy, Martin R. 

Miller, . . . . . . . 164 

Exhibition of 1869, 

Reverence in the American Character, John C. Fowler, . 174 

Exhibition of 1870, 

The Heroism of the Naturalist, James H. Hoadley, . 184 

Exhibition of 187 i. 

Sir William Hamilton and His Contributions to Philos- 
ophy, Robert L. Bachman, . . . .193 

Exhibition of 1872, 

Commerce : Its Growth and Influence, Brainard G. 
Smith, ....... 204 

Exhibition of 1873, 

The Indebtedness of English Literature to the Bible, Oliver 

E. Branch, . . . . . .217 

Exhibition of 1874, 

The Supernatural in Literature, Edgar A. Enos, . . 223 

Exhibition of 1875, 

The Humorous Element in the History of Reforms, 
Charles K. Seward, ..... 230 



CONTENTS vii 

Exhibition of 1876, 

The Pathos of the Bible, Howard P. Eel Is, . . 238 

Exhibition of 1877, 

The Heroism of General Havelock, Frank V. Mills, . 245 

Exhibition of 1878, 

Remorse as Delineated in English Poetry, William L. 

Parsons, . . . . . .252 

Exhibition of 1879, 

The Heroism of General Jackson, Robert S, Rudd, . 260 

Exhibition of 1880, 

The Race Problem in the United States, Charles A. 

Gardiner, . . . . ... 269 

Exhibition of 188 i. 

The Mormons and the United States Government, Robert 

W. Hughes, ...... 277 

Exhibition of 1882, 

Nelson and Farragut, Anthony H. Evans, . . 286 

Exhibition of 1883, 

The Good and the Evil of the American Newspaper, 

Clement G. Martin, ..... 293 

Subjects of 1884, ..... 301 

Exhibition of 1885, 

The Battle of Monmouth, Wager Bradford, . . 302 

Exhibition of 1886, 

Saxon and Slav in Asia, James B. Lee, . . . 309 

Exhibition of 1887, 

The Strength and Weakness of Culture, Charles B. Cole, 316 

Exhibition of 1888, 

Poetry as a Teacher of Patriotism, Abraham L. McAdam, 323 

Exhibition of 1889, 

The Spanish Armada, Frederick Perkins, . . . 330 

Exhibition of 1890, 

Victor Hugo, Poet and Patriot, Robert J. Hughes, . 338 



viii THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Exhibition of 1891, 

The Conception of Human Progress in Tennyson, Bayard 
L. Peck, . . . . . .345 

Exhibition of 1892, . . . . .352 

Exhibition of 1893, 

Waterloo and Sedan, Nathaniel McGiffin, . . 353 

Subjects of 1894, ...... 360 

Index to Speakers, . . . . . .361 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE CLARKPRIZE IN HAMILTON COLLEGE,N.Y. 



ITS EARLY HISTORY. 



THE Clark Prize in Hamilton College was 
founded by the Hon. Aaron Clark, of New 
York city, in 1855. Not many facts in the life of 
the founder can now be definitely ascertained ; yet 
as one of the benefactors of the college, he de- 
serves to be gratefully remembered. We know that 
Mr. Clark was a student in Hamilton Oneida 
Academy, and that he left Clinton, probably in 
1804, to enter Union College, Schenectady. He was 
graduated at Union in 1808, the same year that 
Samuel Kirkland died. Afterwards, he entered 
the legal profession and practiced law for many 
years in the city of New York. April 11, 1837, he 
was elected Mayor of New York and held the 
office for two years. Hamilton College gave him 
the degree of Master of Arts in 1838. In 1856, he 
was President of the Hamilton Alumni Association, 
and in commencement week of the same year he 
delivered an address to the alumni. He died in 
the city of New York in 1861, at about the age of 
seventy-three. 



lo THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

While Mr. Clark was a student at the Hamilton 
Oneida Academy, its Principal was the well re- 
membered Rev'd Robert Porter, whom John Colt, 
Esq., of Paterson, New Jersey, described as ^'a 
great favorite with the boys." At Union College, 
the class of 1808, in which he was graduated, was 
the first class which President Nott instructed, he 
having been elected President in 1804. It is inter- 
esting to notice also that in college, Mr. Clark was 
taught mathematics by the Rev'd Dr. Thomas 
Macaulay, afterwards an eminent Presbyterian pas- 
tor in New York. He was taught rhetoric and logic 
by the Rev'd Dr. T. C. Brownell, afterwards the 
widely known Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Con- 
necticut, and Greek by the Rev'd Dr. Henry Davis, 
afterwards President of Hamilton College. One of 
his tutors in college was Thomas Emmons Clark, 
who afterwards, for more than forty years, was one 
of the best lawyers in Oneida county and whose 
instructions as a teacher of a Bible Class in Utica 
will never be forgotten. 

If we may know a man's character by the com- 
pany he keeps, it will be interesting and may be 
instructive to recall the names of some of those 
with whom Mr. Clark must have associated in his 
college life. Some of his fellow students at Union, 
either in his own class or in contemporaneous classes, 
from whom he received much of his ' ' unconscious 
tuition," were James Dean, the ''best scholar" in 



EARL V HISTOR V. 1 1 

his class, who was afterwards a tutor in Hamilton 
College, and subsequently Treasurer of the college, 
and still later first Judge of Oneida county ; Alfred 
Conkling, afterwards U. S. District Judge, U. S. 
Minister to Mexico, and the father of Roscoe Conk- 
ling ; the brothers Thomas and John Dewitt, after- 
wards eminent clergymen in the Reformed Dutch 
Church ; John C. Spencer, Secretary of State of 
N. Y. , and U. S. Sec'y of War and of the Treas- 
ury ; and Gideon Hawley, the organizer of our 
New York system of common schools. Among 
his college friends, those who afterwards were more 
or less closely identified with Hamilton College, 
were the Hon. James O. Morse, of Cherry Valley, 
and the Rev'd Dr. Jacob Van Vechten, of Sche- 
nectady. No wonder that with such teachers and 
* * keeping such company " in his college life, he 
became a useful and honored citizen. 

In 1837, when he was about fifty years of age, 
he was elected Mayor of the city of New York. 
About four years previous to Mr. Clark's election 
this Mayoralty had been made a higher honor than 
ever before. Before 1833, the Mayors of New York 
had been appointed by the Common Council. Mr. 
Clark, like his two immediate predecessors, was 
elected by the people. To be Mayor of New York 
as he was, from 1837 to 1839, was, at that time, to 
hold a more responsible office than that of many a 
Governor. It was a period of financial distress. 



12 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Serious disturbances were not improbable. To 
hold efficiently the reins of power required a steady 
hand. Our College Board of Trust honored itself, 
when in 1838 the Board conferred upon the Mayor 
of New York the degree of Master of Arts. 
Although he was a graduate of Union College, per- 
haps his early attachment to Hamilton Oneida 
Academy might have made him prefer to accept his 
second degree from Hamilton College. In later 
years, when honorary degrees are conferred more 
freely, he might have been made a Doctor of Laws„ 
However this may be, it is pleasant to know that 
his name will be borne upon our roll of honor for- 
ever. 

I remember well his appearance when he deliv- 
ered his address before our alumni, in the old Stone 
Church, in 1856. About sixty-eight years of age, 
he was a sturdy man. For one of his age, he 
seemed very robust, remarkably vigorous in body 
and mind. He spoke like an experienced lawyer, 
with clearness and precision and argumentative 
force. His thoughts were consecutively arranged, 
and were as vigorous as his elocution. His whole 
address was as manly as himself ; most appropriate 
to the place and to the occasion, and to his audience, 
mostly composed of young men. 

I wish I had preserved a letter which he once 
wrote to me. It was characteristic in itself, and in 
his signature. He had noticed that his name in the 



EARL V HISTOR V. 1 3 

title of the prize was printed ' ' Clarke. " He much 
preferred to have it printed '' (7/<^r/^, " without the 
terminal letter 'V." So may it be. 

When the Clark Prize was founded, in 1854-55, 
I had been permitted to teach rhetoric and to train 
young men in Hamilton College in writing English, 
and in public speaking, for about five years. It had 
often occurred to me that we might have a public 
exercise which should represent the highest rhetori- 
cal attainments of the college, exhibiting from time 
to time its very best work in writing and speaking 
— the best work in the art of expression that our 
undergraduates could do. It seemed to me that 
this exercise would not only exhibit and stimulate 
rhetorical attainments specially, but might represent 
and indirectly stimulate the whole culture of the 
college in all its departments, and so be a worthy 
expression of the trained mental and moral and 
physical power of the institution. 

With this purpose in mind, I consulted Professor 
Charles Avery, LL. D., '20, who was then greatly 
interested in increasing the endowments of the 
college. For many years, with remarkable perse- 
verance and unselfishness, Dr. Avery gave much 
time and labor to this most beneficent and difficult 
work. H^e himself could give but little or no money, 
but with heart-felt interest, he induced others to 
give to our beloved college. He deserves to be 
remembered and he Vv^ill be remembered as one of 



14 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

the liberal benefactors of the institution. To Dr. 
Charles Avery we are largely indebted for the 
foundation of the Clark Prize. He had made the 
acquaintance of Mr. Clark, and relying upon his 
interest in the college because of his former life as 
a student in Hamilton Oneida Academy, he called 
his attention to the good that might be done by 
such an endowment. After due consideration, Mr. 
Clark responded by the gift of five hundred dollars. 
He made a condition of his gift that the principal 
should be permanently invested and the income 
appropriated as a prize to that student or those 
students of the Senior Class who should excel in 
oratory. It was an affectionate recognition of the 
benefits Aaron Clark had received from his academic 
life on College Hill. The Trustees of the college 
accepted the gift and pledged themselves to fulfill 
the conditions. President North and the Faculty 
of the college readily approved of the plans pro- 
posed for the establishment of the prize. At first, 
it was thought by some that the income of the 
fund should be awarded in two prizes, but it was 
determined, wisely I think, that the whole income 
should be awarded, as it is now and has been from 
the beginning, in a single prize for the best oration 
in thought, composition, style and delivery. The 
competition was limited to the Senior Class. The 
subjects were to be selected and the six successful 
competitors appointed and the prize awarded by 



EARL V HISTOR V. 1 5 

the Faculty. Other regulations were adopted sim- 
ilar to those now prescribed. 

We had some trouble at first with the length of 
the orations. It is remarkable how many writers 
and speakers "take no note of time" until — they 
are hearers. The ' ' gift of continuance " is too 
frequent^ an unconscious possession. In author- 
ship, as well as in physical life, parents over-esti- 
mate the merits and attractiveness of their own off- 
spring. But these long orations must, somehow, 
be shortened. The patience of even a sympathetic 
college audience is not inexhaustible. So, at first, 
it was decreed that only so many sheets of paper 
should be covered. But writers soon developed 
marvellous skill in microscopic penmanship. Then 
the private reading of the orations to the professor 
of rhetoric was found to be unsatisfactory ; for the 
public delivery of the same number of words took 
much more time than the private reading. It was 
difficult to induce writers to shorten their own com- 
positions, even by the advice or positive direction 
of the professor of rhetoric. In one case, an 
abbreviation decreed by the Faculty was resisted by 
the orator with tears. The critical professor was 
tearfully told that the passage he so cruelly pro- 
posed to omit, would, if retained and delivered by 
the writer, ' ' draw tears from the most obdurate ! " 
It was difficult indeed, even for an obdurate critic, 
hardened by his murderous work, to resist such an 



1 6 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

appeal. But soon after, the present method was 
adopted. Length was ascertained and determined 
by counting the foHos, according to the enactment 
of the courts of New York, by which a foHo is de- 
creed to be one hundred words. Such a method 
seems now as if it must have been very naturally 
suggested. Yet, it was not thought of until it was 
suggested to me by my friend the Hon. Theodore 
M. Pomeroy, LL. D.,''42. And even this folio 
method encountered, at first, the resistance of fer- 
tile writers. We were asked whether such short 
words as articles and conjunctions might not be 
omitted in the counting. In my time, if I remem- 
ber correctly, no oration was accepted which con- 
tained more than twelve folios. I doubt whether 
the present increase of the length to fifteen folios 
has improved the orations. 

After the six orations had been selected by the 
Faculty, no speaker was permitted to alter his 
composition ; this prohibition is the only excuse I 
have now, at this late day, to offer for what might, 
otherwise, seem mischievous in me. At the first 
exhibition, in 1855, three orations were delivered 
on the same theme : "The Imagination as a Means 
of Napoleon's Success." All three speakers meant 
to quote correctly and appropriately the sublime 
apostrophe of Napoleon at the beginning of his 
battle with the Mamelukes in Egypt, in sight of the 
pyramids. One speaker made him exclaim, 



EARL Y HISTOR V. 1 7 

* ' Soldiers, from the top of yonder pyramids twenty 
centuries look down upon you ! " Another speaker 
made him say ' ' thirty centuries. " And still another 
orator proclaimed the fact, with increasing emphasis, 
that ' ' forty centuries look down upon you ! " 
Neither speaker knew what the others had said, 
but the hearers remembered ; and when the last 
quotation was made, it was received with most 
tumultuous applause, to the amusement of the 
audience and to the delight of the unconscious ora- 
tor over the overwhelming success of his eloquence! 
No harm was done. The Professor, mischievously 
perhaps, had prevented monotony. 

During the sixteen years — 185 5-1 870, in which I 
supervised the annual exhibitions, the six speakers 
were prepared for the public exercise by four elo- 
cutionary rehearsals each — three in the chapel on 
the hill, and the last in the Stone Church in Clinton. 
The aim in each rehearsal was to develop as com- 
pletely as possible the characteristic powers of each 
speaker so that he might give not mine, but his own 
best expression to his own thoughts, giving the full- 
est effect to his own speech by the most effective 
action that was most natural to himself. To gain 
this end, that each speaker might do his best, 
neither time nor labor nor repetitious drilling were 
spared by either the professor or the speaker. So 
much was done in this way by both, that not only 
were many bad habits corrected, but good habits 



1 8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

were formed. Many speakers were taught "how 
to be natural " in a way never forgotten ; so that 
their ' ' Clark Prize Oration " became a valuable 
life-long possession — a kind of elocutionary ' ' study, " 
bringing them back to nature whenever they wan- 
dered away. 

In the course of time, there grew up in the col- 
lege, among the students in successive classes, a 
band of assistants who greatly aided in the work of 
these rehearsals, seeing that the suggestions of the 
professor were carried out, or disapproving them 
sometimes, or making new suggestions, possibly. 

And we must not forget to mention also the touch 
of humor that often brightened our final fourth re- 
hearsal in the village church, when in the earlier 
days of the prize, the old sexton, Samuel Foote, so 
well remembered for his stentorian voice, used to 
come limping upon the platform showing to pro- 
fessor and speaker with inimitable grace ' ' how he 
could do it and how it ought to be done ! " 

From the beginning, the Clark Prize was success- 
ful. There was no lack of competitors. The sub- 
jects selected were dignified and thoughtful, worth 
writing and speaking and hearing about. They 
enlisted the best work of many of the best young 
men in successive Senior classes. And I think I 
have noticed the permanent influence of some of 
the subjects discussed upon the character of some 
of the competitors in their subsequent lives. The 
exhibition was held in the early summer, when the 



EARLY HISTORY 



19 



valley of the Oriskany and beautiful College Hill 
with its verdure are in their glory. Large and bril- 
liant audiences were drawn together from far and 
near. The whole occasion was as inspiriting as the 
fountain of youth. It was delightful to see so many 
young men transformed for the time into genuine 
orators, graceful, forcible, manly : apparently up- 
lifted almost out of themselves by their subjects and 
the thought they had given to them, and by their effort 
to give a true expression to their thoughts and feel- 
ings. There were none connected with the occa- 
sion who were not benefited by it : not only the 
successful prize-taker, but every writer for it, 
whether or not selected to be one of the six com- 
petitors, was stimulated and broadened and strength- 
ened by his effort. The whole college felt the in- 
spiration. And many an academy boy who came 
to listen, resolved to graduate and kept his resolu- 
tion. 

We cannot be too grateful to the founder for 
that little gift that has done so much for so many : 
' ' How far that little candle throws his beams ! So 
shines a good deed in a naughty world." Like so 
many educational methods invented in Hamilton 
College, our Clark Prize has been honored by imi- 
tators in many other institutions. It is encourag- 
ing to know that for thirty-nine years it has lived 
and is still useful. Esto Perpetua. 

Anson J. Upson. 

Glens Falls, N. Y., December '/th, i8pj. 



THE CLARK PRIZE FROM 1872 TO 1885. 

^^T^HE competition in oratory which is intended 
1 to stimulate men how to speak is the high- 
est exercise in which educated young men can en- 
gage." The occasion of these words was the 
announcement of the awards at the Inter-Collegiate 
contest in Oratory, held in the Academy of Music, 
New York, January 3rd, 1877, when, for the second 
time, the first honor was assigned to Hamilton Col- 
lege. The speaker was the presiding officer, the 
late Rev. Dr. S. Irenaeus Prime, for nearly half a 
century, editor of the Neiv York Obse^-ver. 

Dr. Prime, as a distinguished representative of 
the press, made it plain in thus emphasizing the 
value of oratorical training, that, in his opinion, the 
power of the spoken word has not been transferred 
to the printed word. It is true that the press has 
taken much for its province that in ancient times 
belonged to the orator, and so now informs and in- 
structs where once the orator alone was teacher. 
But no less is it true that it is, to-day, the press 
which gives wings to the spoken word, and leaving 
it no longer a message local and transient, makes it 
an influence universal and immortal. 

The peculiar mission of the orator is not, how- 
ever, to inform and instruct, but to convince and 



1872 TO i88s. 21 

persuade. And here his power is supreme. *'The 
deepest avenues to the soul," says one of our most 
philosophic thinkers, ''is by the ear." The relig- 
ions that have moved mankind most profoundly 
have addressed themselves to the ear and not to 
the eye. Moses spake, the prophets spake, the 
Son of God spake, the apostles spake is the record 
of the means which God has used to draw to Him- 
self the heart and mind and will and life of the 
human race. Nor, at the present moment, can the 
cold, speechless type, however informing and appeal- 
ing, work upon man the spell of the living pres- 
ence, the speaking gesture, the inspiring voice. 
And so, when man is to be moved to his depths that 
he may feel a transforming influence on life and 
character, or is to be inspired to action the highest 
and noblest, or is to be strengthened to serve as he 
''stands and waits," the soul opens itself to no 
other form of direct address as to the commanding 
persuasiveness of the spoken word. Dr. Prime 
was then not without reason for thinking so highly 
of the competitions which aim to help educated 
young men to something of this power in public 
speech. 

But such competitions do more than impart this 
particular power. They develop, as can no other 
form of academic training, elements of character 
essential to the largest usefulness and noblest suc- 
cess To meet such public demands, the comipetitor 



2 2 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

finds that something more is needed than mastery of 
voice, grace of manner, fehcity of expression, or 
earnestness of thought. Behind all these elements 
of impressive speech, must stand the man with every 
power of body, heart, mind and soul bent to give to 
the word which he speaks all that he is in purpose, 
thought and feeling. For without this infusion of 
personal vitality and energy, public speech is with- 
out the means of personal ascendency. And what 
is the ability so to concentrate and to direct personal 
force but one which success in every walk of life 
demands .'* No less, then, has the training which 
helps to this self-mastery and self-reliance, this 
strength and poise of will, this power to inspire 
every intellectual and moral energy to gain the end 
in view, a value for the man than for the speaker. 

It is well, therefore, that the usefulness of the 
long list of Clark Prize competitions in oratory at 
Hamilton College should have some permanent 
recognition, as in this volume of orations. 

The most interesting fact of the Clark Prize ex- 
hibitions as I knew them, was their remarkable in- 
fluence. Directly, this influence was felt as an in- 
centive and as a standard in all the work in writing 
and speaking from the beginning to the end of the 
college course. Certain orations of literary fame 
or of noted popular effect associated many years 
before with the Clark Prize stage, were read and 
studied by aspirants to like success, with an interest 



1872 TO 1 88s. 23 

and an ardor, which the productions that the world 
calls great could not then command. Nor is this 
to be criticised. We all learn most and fastest in 
our earlier if not in our later years, by that which is 
nearest to us in excellence. Its merits do not dis- 
hearten but stimulate. The superiority is not so 
beyond what we think we may in time reach as to 
warn us from the attempt, but seems to beckon us 
on with assuring promise. I am glad, therefore, 
that some of these orations which formerly were 
often so difficult of access are now to be obtainable 
by any who would be helped, as by the guidance of 
a somewhat surer and stronger hand, to similar 
attempts. 

Indirectly, through the stimulus which made high 
effort in oratory so common and constant, these 
exhibitions more than any other influence gave to 
the college, as familiar to me, its peculiar atmos- 
phere of culture. A rural college singularly iso- 
lated in situation, with inadequate library, dilapi- 
dated buildings, with no art collections, not even a 
gymnasium of any service so that at least the physi- 
cal man might be trained to symmetry and grace, 
wanting all material and external means — except 
the incomparable beauty of its campus for a few 
brief weeks in summer — to touch and mold the 
finer tastes and sympathies, the college by its en- 
thusiastic devotion to the most comprehensive, vital 
and potential of arts, the art of expression, imparted 



24 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



to its students a spirit of refinement and culture 
which was the surprise of every critical listener at 
its public entertainments. Often, at a Junior exhi- 
bition, when all the members of the class appeared 
in turn upon the stage, has the remark been made 
by visitors, that it was strange so many young men 
from the city should attend the college. And when 
I have said, that with here and there an exception 
the speakers were not from the city, I have been 
told, that the impression made was otherwise. Nor 
was the influence one which stopped with culture 
in speech, appearance, and bearing. It reached 
taste and sympathy and mind and spirit, and trans- 
formed the man. 

The occasion to which I referred when quoting 
from Dr. Prime, is not without significance in this 
direction. The competition was in the metropolis, 
the audience one of rare intelligence and culture, 
the judges of national fame in letters and states- 
manship, the competition mainly from colleges 
drawing their support from centres of wealth and 
refinement, and yet, for two successive years, the 
honors went to the little country college remote 
from all the visible influences which would seem 
essential in the training for success at such a time 
and in such a place. And so I think, I do not give- 
too great importance to the value of these annual 
competitions which as an inspiring and guiding in- 
fluence in the work of the whole rhetorical course, 



1872 TO 1 88s. 25 

touch deep the hfe and impart to it a finer, nobler 
spirit, as they train the outward man to effective 
power and grace in speech. 

Henry Allyn Frink. 

Department of Logic, Rhetoric and Public Speak- 
i7ig, Amherst College. 



THE CLARK PRIZE FROM 1886 TO 1891. 

TWO principles governed the choice of the Clark 
Prize subjects from 1886 to 1891. 

First. That they should be worthy subjects, 
not curious and beautiful bric-a-brac, but subjects 
demanding patient study, leading to practical inter- 
est and calling for earnest advocacy. 

Second. That they should represent more than 
the rhetorical side of the college training ; — the 
truth of many departments put in attractive and 
effective speech. That this ideal was reached by 
all the subjects of the years mentioned can not be 
claimed. That it was held before the mind is seen 
by a careful analysis of the orations, — still more 
marked could the six of each year be placed side 
by side. 

The oratorical training of Hamilton has been for 
the average man and for practical uses. It has 
been ' ' animated conversation " on vital themes. 

The college has recognized the widening sphere 
of public speech and the uses of clear, vigorous 
style in man}^ fields. Hence rhetoric and elocu- 
tion should not be the rivals of other departments, 
and least of all independent of them. Other 
departments train the power of close, logical think- 
ing, give the habit of painstaking investigation, 



1 886 TO i8gi. 27 

furnish the materials of facts and principles, — for 
oratory to put in worthy written and vocal form. 
So scholarship is not dumb, but finds her voice, that 
lays its charm upon the minds of men. 

It is fitting then that the themes for the Clark 
Prize orations, the best expression of the oratorical 
training, should be from many fields — representing 
the studious life of the college. Any system of 
training with the emphasis that Hamilton places 
upon her oratory will have its incidental evils. 
That they do not become inherent depends upon 
the moral life that directs the training. 

Men have sometimes made a fetish of style. 
' ' 'Tis in bad taste " has been the most formidable 
word, to use Emerson's keen wit at English man- 
ners. Does it sound well ? has sometimes taken 
the place of — Is it true ? Will it speak ? has been 
the question : not Is it my conviction .'' and will it 
do men good .-* 

The very word Exhibition has its unpleasant sug- 
gestion, as though truth could be put up for show. 
The moment a man thinks how well he speaks, 
that moment he has lost the genuine power of 
speech. The spirit of reality, that governs the 
best thought of our generation, that tries men and 
methods, is rightly impatient of the mere form of 
oratory, demanding the much within and little with- 
out, the doing of all for truth and nothing for show. 
*' Eloquence is a virtue," but the simulation of elo- 



28 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

quence is a vice. In fact, glibness of speech and 
the tricks of elocution are a foe to the highest uses 
of oratory, the moving of men to noble thought and 
life. Such a reaction has taken place against 
* 'palaver," to use Carlyle's contemptuous word, 
that it is commonly thought that ' ' Eloquence is a 
gift which the Lord does not often use much for 
His purposes — it is a prancing palfrey which the 
Son of Man rarely rides." 

Truth first should be the orator's motto, the man- 
hood that comes from wrestling with great prob- 
lems, the humility of standing before unattained 
measures of life. Then alone is the culture of 
speech a power. 

' ' It were to be wished the flaws were fewer 
In the earthen vessels holding treasure, 
Which lies as safe as in a golden ewer. 
But the main thing is — Does it hold good measure ? 
Heaven soon sets right all other matter." 

The training in style and speech can not be too 
thorough, if it is kept servant of the man and his 
message. In no other department is there such a 
subtle and vital connection between intellectual and 
moral ideals and the training given as in oratory. 
When sincerity is the atmosphere, reality the test 
of word, inflection, gesture ; when young men are 
taught to find truth, and be possessed of conviction 
before they open the mouth, oratorical culture 



1 886 TO i8gi. 29 

makes every other department of study its debtor, 
and helps the highest ends of education. 

Arthur S. Hoyt. 

Auburn Theological Seminary, Dec. d, iSpj. 



THE MEN WHO SPOKE. 

I HAVE been asked by the editors of this interest- 
ing volume to write something for its pages; not, 
I think, because the editors thought that I had 
something to say, — something that very much 
needed saying, — about the Clark Prize in oratory; 
but because I now occupy the Upson Chair of 
Rhetoric and Oratory in Hamilton College. Surely 
one who occupies so honored a seat ought to have 
something to say on so honored a subject. But I 
understand that my predecessors, the men who 
during the last forty years have made the study 
and the practice of the noble art of oratory what 
it has been and what it is in Hamilton College, 
have written, historically and otherwise, about all 
there is to be written on the Clark Prize. "The 
past at least is secure ; " and he would be a 
bold man who should venture to prophesy of the 
future of oratory in Hamilton College. But I 
think that even a timid man might reasonably ven- 
ture to hope much for a department which has been 
reared on the foundations of Mandeville by Anson 
J. Upson, Samuel D. Wilcox, John J. Lewis, Henry 
A. Frink, Arthur S. Hoyt and Clinton Scollard. 

As I wrote the names of the men who succeeded 
Professor Upson, — or should I say. Dr. Anson J 



THE MEN WHO SPOKE. 



31 



Upson, Chancellor of the University of the State 
of New York ? I like the old name best ; I alv/ays 
think of the beloved man who, more than any one 
else, made Hamilton College the ' ' Home of 
Oratory" as ''Prof. Ups," — as I wrote those five 
nariies, Wilcox, Lewis, Frink, Hoyt and Scollard, 
it occurred to me that they would serve admirably 
as the text for my brief discourse ; as a sort of sub- 
text in the larger discourse on the great text ' ' The 
Clark Prize in Oratory." Of those five men four 
were Clark Prize speakers, and three were valedic- 
torians of their classes. Two, alas, are dead ; but 
they lived to attain honorable distinction. The 
others have attained and maintain honorable dis- 
tinction. Let us see whether the Clark Prize com- 
petition has attracted the scholars of the college ; 
let us see whether Clark Prize orators, as a class, 
have attained and maintained honorable distinction. 
There have been thirty-eight Clark Prize exhi- 
bitions, and fourteen valedictorians have competed, 
and sixteen salutatorians. That but two valedicto- 
rians, Gardiner and Cole, carried off the prize, while 
seven salutatorians were successful, proves, — well, I 
don't know that I am called upon to say what it does 
prove. A study of the records shows that of the 
two hundred and twenty-eight men who have spoken 
for the prize, one hundred and five have been honor- 
maen. A fair showing certainly, considering that 
for many years honors were granted to but very 



32 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

few men in each class ; to six or eight at the most : 
a showing that indicates clearly that the honormen 
of Hamilton have been something more than mere 
bookmen ; that accurate scholarship and oratorical 
ability are not, of necessity, antagonistic, as some 
w^ho sneer at the study of oratory in college, would 
have us believe. 

At the very first Clark Prize exhibition the vale- 
dictorian, salutatorian, and third honorman. Stock- 
ing, Burke, and Hart, competed, and the salut- 
atorian won. Two years later Herrick Johnson, 
the salutatorian, took the prize, with the third and 
fourth men in the class, Arthur T, Pierson and 
Augustus S. Seymour, competing. It was Saluta- 
torian Buckingham who won the prize in 1862 ; and 
it was the third man in his class, Bogue, who the 
year following carried off the prize from Valedic- 
torian Van Norden and Salutatorian Adams. Elihu 
Root was the valedictorian of 1864, but the salut- 
atorian, Henry M. Simmons, beat him for the prize. 
It was Fowler, the salutatorian of 1869, who won 
the prize ; and in 1874, Enos, the salutatorian, was 
successful over Hemenway, valedictorian, and 
Blackmar, third honorman. So in 1882, Evans, 
the salutatorian, was the winner, Valedictorian 
Dewey being one of the competitors ; and four 
years later both Valedictorian Tolles and Saluta- 
torian Hotchkiss were beaten by Honorman Lee. 
The Class of '87 ought to be proud of its Clark 



THE MEN WHO SPOKE. 33 

Prize exhibition, and probably it is. All who 
spoke were honormen ; and Valedictorian Cole 
won from Salutatorian Robson, and from third and 
fifth honormen, Brown and Judson. Since that 
year no valedictorians have spoken for the prize, 
and but two salutatorians. Root of '90 and Lee of '91 . 
And how have these Clark Prize orators carried 
themselves in the sterner competitions of life ? 
Among those alive to-day, — there is many a star in 
the Triennial Catalogue set against the names of 
Clark Prize men, — among those alive to-day, who 
have had time enough to show their mettle, I find 
twenty-eight successful (not mediocre, but success- 
ful) lawyers ; some of them at the head and front 
of their profession. There are twenty-six success- 
ful clergymen ; and of these not one or tv/o only 
whose names are well-known on both sides of the 
Atlantic, and across the Pacific. There are at least 
four worthy to be called statesmen. In business 
a baker's dozen have proved their right to the ad- 
jective ''successful." Of editors who have been 
heard from there are seven. Upon the bench are 
four Clark Prize men ; one is a Regent of the Uni- 
versity of the State of New York ; three recently 
have been appointed delegates to the Constitu- 
tional Convention ; five are at the head of colleges 
or seminaries ; thirteen answer to the title "Pro- 
fessor ;" of poets there are three worthy to wear 
the bay, and of rhymsters there are many ; the few 



34 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

who minister to the aiHng bodies of their fellow 
men have won unusual distinction ; and who shall 
say how many call themselves authors ? 

One author deserves especial mention. It is 
Peck of '59, the author of Peck of '91, who won 
the prize that year. Scott of '59, w^as the first 
Clark Prize missionary. He carried his eloquence 
and his consecrated life to Persia. And Knox of 
'74, is known better in Japan to-day, than any 
other son of Hamilton. But I must not forget the 
maxim of good Mrs. Gamp, Which namin' no 
names, no offense could be took. Yet, I will add 
three names. They are from the Clark Prize men 
of '62. They are Buckingham, Bradbury, and 
Curran. They are but types of the greater num- 
ber of Hamilton's" sons, who in the direful days of 
the sixties went forth from the sheltering arms of 
their Mother on the Hill, to the stern shock and 
play of battle. They gave their lives for their 
country, and we count them among our most suc- 
cessful brothers, for 



Each 



"They never fail, who die 
In a great cause." 

' ' Left a deathless lesson — 
A name which is a virtue, and a soul 
"Which multiplies itself throughout all time, 
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state 
Turns servile." 

It has been hinted sometimes that interest in 



THE MEN WHO SPOKE. 35 

oratory is waning in Hamilton College. I do not 
believe it. If it does wane, it will not, I think, be 
because the college authorities lack interest. With 
five Clark Prize speakers in the Board of Trust, and 
with a Faculty in which are seven competitors for 
the great oratorical prize, it is pretty safe to say 
that there will be no action in either of these bodies 
tending to belittle the noble art, which so long has 
been cherished here, and which so amply has repaid 
the college for her years of sedulous and sympa- 
thetic encouragement. 

Brainard G. Smith. 
Hamilton College. 



CLARK PRIZE ORATIONS. 



EXHIBITION OF 1855. 

"The Imagination as a Means of Napoleon's Success," 
John Edmund Burke, 
William Bonnair Fairfield, 
William Hart. 

"The Treatment of Aliens in this Country," 

William Henry Jackson. 

"The Risks of Thinking," 

Schuyler Bliss Steere, 
Solon Walter Stocking. 



THE IMAGINATION AS A MEANS OF NAPOLEON'S 

SUCCESS. 



BY WILLIAM B. FAIRFIELD. 



THERE is a natural tendency among all men 
when they meet with the word imagination, 
to affix to it a meaning which places it among the 
gewgaws and tinsels of intellect. But this is far 
from its real meaning ; it is not an article for dream- 
ing, fantastic men alone to deal with ; it is as much 
the property of the man of the world as the man 
of letters, as much the property of the soldier as 
the poet. It is the motive power of the whole 
machinery of the mind, the origin of our endeavors 



38 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

and the promoter of our successes. Thus by a 
mere conception Mohammed estabhshed the rehg- 
ion of nations and placed himself at their head as 
God's prophet. To her influence upon the imagi- 
nations of her followers, the Romish church owes 
the power with which she has swayed the world. 
History teems with instances of imagination deter- 
mining the success of great men. But amid them 
all there is probably no better illustration of the 
influence of imagination upon success in life, than 
Napoleon. Let us endeavor to point out some of 
the instances of the influence of imagination upon 
Napoleon himself, and show wherein it was an ele- 
ment of success in his career. 

It influenced him most directly and powerfully in 
his boyhood, and constituted, unconsciously per- 
haps, the chief motive of those endeavors, which 
afterwards made him so famous. Of a disposition 
naturally ardent and impulsive, and educated in an 
island struggling for its independence, he eagerly 
seized upon the stories of his country's battles and 
feasted his young fancy upon legends of chivalric 
deeds, garnished with all the wild romance of a 
partisan warfare. These were stories of his native 
heroes, and so emulous did he become of their 
names and deeds that his whole ambition was to be 
of them and with them. When, however, he en- 
tered the military school of Brienne, a new and 
wider range for imagination opened before him. 



EXHIBITION OF iSss- 39 

Amid its vast libraries but one book seemed to 
interest and enchain him. With a volume of Plu- 
tarch as his sole companion, he would retire to the 
shade of a favorite tree and there read and muse 
upon the deeds of ancient heroes. Corsica's patriots 
were soon lost in admiration of those conquerors of 
old, before whose arms a world had fallen. Under 
the shade of that tree he would lay and dream day- 
dreams, and build castles in the air with all the 
fervency of boyhood. That he did this we have 
his own confessions to prove, but how far into the 
future his fancy then flew or how bright that future 
pictured, we cannot tell. But we knov/ that even 
then his restless spirit was chafing in its limits, that 
he was doing deeds he afterward executed, and in 
imagination leading armies he afterward command- 
ed in reality. It was at this time he exclaimed, 
''With ten thousand men I could conquer all Italy!" 
His fancy had so brightly clothed the feats and suc- 
cess of a military life, so grand had it appeared to 
his imagination that all the powers of his mind were 
bent to the accomplishment and realization of his 
idea. 

But while Napoleon in retirement was dreaming 
and planning ; fate, active without, was exciting a 
convulsion that would change the wild chaos of 
-those dreams into a distinctness of form and reality 
tenable to the monarchies of Europe. At length 
the revolution bursts out in Paris ; Napoleon silent- 



40 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



ly and thoughtfully paced its blood-stairxcd streets. 
He knew that convulsions like these had tossed 
many a man to the summit of power, and why 
should they not serve him for- a like purpose ? 

Before him., magnificent even in its ruins, was 
the throne of France, crumbling beneath the attacks 
of the infuriated mob, and that throne he might 
restore for himself, — he, the poor Corsican lieuten- 
ant, without family, without even a name, might 
restore it. Surely it was a wild dream, but he had 
become so accustomed in his boyish imagination to 
associate himself with great men and great deeds, 
that it seemed not only possible but probable. The 
means were around him, ready v/ithin his grasp. 
That heated fervid mass within and the flames 
of war without, were the elements he must operate 
upon. He knew the French to be a nation of 
fatalists, fond of effect and display, eager after the 
novel and mysterious, and worshippers of power. 
To succeed he must impress their imaginations ; 
that once done and they were but his playthings. 
Fortune placed him at Toulon ; his success there 
made him commander at the revolt of the sections; 
his firmness here placed him at the head of the 
army of Italy. Once there he caught the echo of 
his youthful exclamation, ' ' With ten thousand men 
I could conquer all Italy ! " Now the whole bright 
field of his youthful imaginings lies spread out be- 
fore. Fortune smiles upon him and here begins 



EXHIBITION OF 1833. 41 

that confidence in himself, which in aftedife was 
almost sublime. Three Austrian armies fell in suc- 
cession before him. Victory followed victory. 
Governments bowed down to him. The pope 
of Rome received v/hatever termxS he dictated. The 
gates of the Eternal City flew open to receive him, 
and Napoleon walks, a conqueror, in the palace of 
the Caesars. France asks, who is this Napoleon } 
The answer is, ' ' I am the child of destiny, " and 
catching at the words, France hails him as a demi- 
god. 

He had dazzled the French people ; he had en- 
slaved their imaginations. They loved to talk of 
his destiny and speculate about it. He was new, 
he was wonderful, above all he was mysterious. 
He had becomiC their * ' star in the east, " their Mes- 
siah. They shouted, he has the stamp of divinity 
upon his brow, and when after renewed successes 
he made himself consul and then emperor, * ' It 
is his destiny," they cried, and murmured not. 

But it was not upon the imaginations of the 
people alone, that he wrought, but upon those of 
his officers and men. He went to an army dis- 
pirited and mutinous. In appearance a mere boy, 
he commanded generals, gray-haired and scarred 
with service. His officers doubted, but as victory 
followed each blow, they wondered that one so 
young could be so great. He came at a moment 

when a victory would have been regarded as almost 
4 



42 1HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

a miracle, and its originator as a god. So sudden 
were his movements and so mysterious seemed the 
success which followed upon each, that they knew 
not what to think or say of such a man who, lay- 
ing aside all rules and established tactics, seemed 
to act from the influence of some superior being. 

But while the French people admired Napoleon 
and while his generals fought for him, as if for a 
superior being, he had established himself in the 
imaginations of his soldiers as their idol. Early 
impressed himself that he should not die in battle, 
he was ever in the thickest of the fight. So often 
had victory followed his movements and so often 
had the messenger of death been warded off, that 
his troops thought that death dare not come where 
he was, that where his eye glanced, there victory 
lay. He was accustomed before his battles to ap- 
peal to the imagination of his soldiers. On the 
eve of one of his battles, under shadow of the 
Pyramids, he said, ' ^ Soldiers, from yonder pile thirty 
centuries look down upon you." No more was 
needed. The imagination of the French soldier 
saw the spirits of the great Egyptian dead encir- 
cling the summits of the gigantic creations of their 
skill. The French soldier was fighting on the bat- 
tle-fields of nations who centuries before had passed 
away, and if fall he must the plains of Pharaoh 
should be his grave and Egypt's Pyramids his mon- 
ument. 

His army claimed him as their own. So certain 



EXHIBIT. ION OF i8ss- 43 

had victory become under his guidance, and so 
wonderful had his successes appeared, that on the 
bloodiest battle-field amid the hecatombs of the 
dying and the dead, he seemed to them rather as 
the high priest, offering incense to the god of 
battles than the mercenary soldier. 

A great deal also of Napoleon's success was due 
to his influence upon the imagination of his enemies. 
In their vision he was the hydra-headed monster. 
So suddenly had he loomed up from the mass and 
mobs of the French revolution ; so lightning-like 
had been his blows, and so rapid and sure his suc- 
cess that they began to think him unconquerable ; 
they felt that they must yield to the irresistible des- 
tiny of the man. They returned to their homes 
and painted him as one whose natural element was 
war, and whose sweetest music was the war and 
din of battle, and the shrieks and groans of the 
dying. Disheartened by his many victories they 
went forth with fear to meet him, while his name 
as the battle-cry of those victorious legions struck 
terror to their hearts, and they fled almost without 
a blow. 

Through all Europe his name paled fair cheeks 
and many a mother at the thought of him strained 
closer to her bosom her little ones. Even in Eng- 
land he had gained and still holds the rivalry of one 
of Scott's heroes. 

' ' Chili's dark matron long shall tame 
The fro ward child with Bertram's name." 



44 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Such was the instrument and such the means of 
Bonaparte's success. His imagination was the 
source of his endeavors ; his influence upon the 
imagination of others promoted his progress and 
ensured his success. He stepped forth upon the 
stage of action at a time when the world was 
waiting breathlessly for a prominent actor in the 
tragedy then enacting in France. Springing from 
a lowly origin, his rapid rise and continued success 
dazzled the imagination of both actors and specta- 
tors. His mind, strong and active, was the basis ; 
but as in some old cathedral we have seen the sun- 
light pouring through its stained windows, and 
tinting with a thousand hues the space within, so 
imagination penetrates and colors all the deeds and 
thoughts of Bonaparte. Nature made him a poet, 
but he preferred to act rather than write a poem. 
His life v/as one grand epic, and its music, slow and 
solemn, was chanted in the roar and din of battle, 
in strain above the praise of critics. From Aus- 
terlitz, Jena, Lodi, Wagram, the whole world 
heard it, and when its mournful cadence marked the 
slow falling of the curtain upon the closing scene 
at Waterloo, the nations shuddered. 

'Twas there the ' ' harp the monarch minstrel swept' 
was hushed ; its cords had broken one by one. 
That harp whose tumultuous strains had charmed 
the world, and brought its kings in trembling to his 
feet, was shattered. Upon that field France's 
brightest light went out ; earth's mightiest poet fell. 



EXHIBITION OF 1856. 

"The Power of a Belief in an Endless Life," 
Theodore Beard, 
William James Erdman, 
Charles Eugene Knox. 

"Is that Government the best which governs least ?" 
Edward Curran. 

"The Legacy of Rome to the World," 

Henry Lyman Duguid, 
Franklin Harvey Head. 

" Alexander Pope as the Literary Exponent of his Times." 



THE LEGACY OF ROME TO THE WORLD. 



by franklin h. head. 



IT is a proposition, capable of easy demonstration, 
that the influence of every person who ever lived 
still exists ; that however obscure his station, or 
hermit-like his life, he still modified to some extent 
the characters of those around him ; that even the 
infant, whose tiny wail was heard but for a single 
hour, far back in the very infancy of nations, still 
lives in the characters, and acts in the actions of 
now living men. 

Much more is this true of nations. It matters 
not whether a nation have a literature or not ; it 
matters not whether pilgrims from all nations, and 
devotees from all lands, weep round some stately 



46 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Mausoleum o'er her buried arts, or whether the an- 
tiquary searches in vain for the shghtest traces of 
her existence ; still her legacy is bequeathed ; still 
her lesson is spoken. 

Before considering the great and peculiar legacy 
of Rome, we will examine what Rome is ; to what 
part of her gorgeous surroundings she is herself en- 
titled, in her own unquestioned right. Distance 
has now lent to the achievements of Rome the 
magic of its enchantment. We are too apt to look 
upon her as a very El Dorado of political, intellec- 
tual and artistic wealth. To us, her sages discourse 
learnedly of the mysteries of life. Forms, which 
almost breathe, spring from the quarry at the touch 
of her sculptors. Painters garnish the temples of 
her gods ; and poets chant their strains at the pub- 
lic assemblies, and in the palaces of her monarchs. 
But this gorgeous portraiture represents not native, 
original Rome. This is Rome clad in the drapery 
of her Grecian neighbors ; Rome Atticised. Cicero, 
the philosopher, utters the dogmas of Plato ; Cicero, 
the orator, follows in the footprints of Demosthenes. 
Her lyrists warble the songs of Pindar ; her epic 
master chants the strains of Homer. Not from 
the purification and sublimation of the beautiful in 
nature and in themselves, but from the Grecian 
works do the Roman artists seek their inspiration. 

No ! it is not in the beautiful arts that we must 
seek the legacy of Rome. They were ever but 



EXHIBITION OF iSjd. 47 

exotics there. In the attempts at their culture was 
shown what Roman genius was not. Her real 
legacy, the real manifestations of her genius, is in 
the volumes of her civil and municipal law. 

The Romans were the first people b}^ v/hom law 
was reduced to the logical exactness of an art, and 
its application made a science. With the preexist- 
ent nations the judiciary was well nigh untrammeled 
by precedent. The judges decided not upon the 
justice of the cause, but upon the eloquence or in- 
genuity of its advocates ; not upon the facts pre- 
sented for their consideration, but as to who had 
made the most successful appeal to their prejudices 
or passions. 

How happened it, then, that the Romans were 
the first to abolish this lawless discretion in judges ; 
this strong engine of tyranny } One reason was 
this : From the first they were a nation of warriors. 
Preparation for the contest was their recreation ; 
the clangor of arms, their sweetest music. Trained 
to the most unhesitating obedience, witnessing in 
every conflict the superiority resultant from disci- 
pline, they became a nation obedient to law, and 
from that very fact fitted to be its makers. Their 
jurisprudence was the product of their genius thus 
formed, working under circumstances the most 
auspicious. 

For ages there raged an unceasing strife between 
the patricians and the people. Where, better than 



48 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

in such an arena, could be disciplined the lawgivers 
of the world ? A conflict for constitutional privi- 
lege on the one hand, and on the other for natural 
right ; on the one hand for usurped power, on the 
other for justice. Amid these continual mental 
tournaments and compromises was developed the 
body of their law. 

That for this development was required a high 
and peculiar order of talent is evident from the 
rareness of its bestowal. The fundamental princi- 
ples of justice are few and simple, but to trace out 
these principles to their legitimate consequences 
was a work first accomplished in the learned and 
splendid age of Roman jurisprudence. To the 
Roman lawyer, alone, has justice unfolded all her 
mysteries. Although, in the progress of society, 
countless new questions and new relations have 
arisen, yet the principles of the Roman law illumine 
controversial regions which were then undiscovered 
lands, and guide us through labyrinths which were 
to them unknown. 

It is impossible to estimate too highly the value 
of this legacy of Rome. Twice has she conquered 
the world. Once, by her physical strength and 
discipline ; again, by her mental prowess. And 
although her martial supremacy has long since 
passed away, she yet governs the world by the 
nobler supremacy of her reason. The arms of her 
soldiers are palsied ; her generals, with their tro- 



EXHIBITION OF 1836. 49 

phies, have crumbled to dust ; the hermit makes 
his home in her stately pavilions ; yet she is not a 
whit the less the mistress of the world. Before the 
swaying of her scepter, the law, the great and the 
gifted of modern times have bovv^ed in willing and 
obedient homage. 

To write the history of the Roman law for the 
last two thousand years, is to write the decline of 
the ancient and the rise of the modern civilization. 
When, in process of time, Rome had conquered all 
nations, and had lost herself, her law was yet un- 
touched by that degradation which marked all 
things else. That still bore upon every feature of 
its majestic image, the impress of her highest civil- 
ization. The signatures of Commodus and Cara- 
calla, those living, bitter satires on the human race, 
are appended to some of the purest judicialdecisions 
recorded in the pandects. 

But when Rome was subdued, when Alaric and 
Attila, with their hordes, extinguished the last 
spark of her civilization, feudalism, that giant off- 
spring of universal war, clasped all Europe in its 
blasting and v/ithering embrace. Then the thick 
darkness of intellectual and moral night brooded 
over the nations ; the Roman law for ages was 
buried in the libraries of the monks, and liberty and 
learning, wreathed in cypress, bewailed its remedi- 
less loss. Then came the dawning of a brighter 
day ; religion acquired a new vitality, and with the 



50 'THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Roman law as its colaborer, went forth to revivify 
and enlighten humanity. 

From that time the Roman law has been ever 
widening the sphere of its domain. It is incorpo- 
rated into the jurisprudence of continental Europe ; 
and, underlying the common and statute law of 
England, it has traveled with the Anglo-Saxon race 
into every province of its world-embracing do- 
minion. Here, where the lost Atlantis of Plato 
has reappeared ; here^ where are well nigh actual- 
ized the dream.ings of that philosopher, the Roman 
law has acquired for itself a magnificent empire. 
Unshackled by the feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny, 
the unyielding conservatism which hampers its 
progress in the Old World, it bids fair here to work 
out to the full its mission of beneficence ; to substi- 
tute for the ruling of old forms and the mummies 
of dead theories, the domination of strict and scien- 
tific justice. We resort to the books of the civil 
law as the ancients to the shrine at Delphi ; but, 
unlike them, we hear no enigmatical or lying ora- 
cles. Untinged by the subtle scholasticisms of the 
middle ages, they ever speak clearly and unmistak- 
ably the words of political wisdom and of everlast- 
ing justice. 

Such is the legacy of Rome. And in truth, is it 
not a great and a noble one } The legacy of Jeru- 
salem has opened the gates of heaven to man, and 
given to him who is worthy, a happy and an everlast- 



EXHIBITION OF iSjd. 5 1 

ing life. Athens, the home of all the aesthetic arts, 
has left a priceless legacy of beauty, which shall be 
to man ''a joy forever." And surely, next in value 
to these is the legacy of Rome. From woman 
emancipated, from innocence justified, from hu- 
manity ennobled, goes up a ceaseless paeon in its 
praise. Hand in hand with Christianity, it invades 
the regions of mental and moral darkness, to con- 
quer, to civilize, and to bless. It is a terror in the 
path of the oppressor and the doer of evil ; and of 
the downtrodden and wronged, it might say in al- 
most the language of Jehovah, "I have seen the 
oppression of my people, and I have come to deliver 
them." 



EXHIBITION OF 1857. 

"The Position of Patrick Henry in American History," 
George Miles Diven, 
William Mason Robinson. 

" Assimilation of Character to Objects of Thought," 
Herrick Johnson, 
Arthur Tappan Pierson. 

"The Power of Reserve," 

Don Juan Robinson. 

"The Beautiful in its Relations to Christianity," 

Augustus Sherill Seymour. 

" Christian Principle as a Power in Politics." 



THE POSITION OF PATRICK HENRY IN AMERICAN 

HISTORY. 



BY GEORGE M. DIVEN. 



T was a most notable feature of our country's 
struggle for independence, that such a splendid 
array of extraordinary men were so fortunately con- 
secrated to its consummation. History indeed 
teaches us that when a nation is about to break off 
the tyrannical shackles which have restrained its pro- 
gress, and take a grand stride in the march of civili- 
zation, an overruling Providence ever seems to 
rouse its slumbering genius and raise up men ade- 
quate to the emergency ; yet nowhere, in all her 
annals, does she present us with such a devoted 



EXHIBITION OF 1837. 53 

band of patriots, daring v/arriors, accomplished 

statesman and able orators. Foremost among this 

noble band — the most remarkable of them all — 

stands Patrick Henry, the orator of the Revolution ; 

"the forest-born Demosthenes, 
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas ; " 

the man ' ' who gave the first impulse to the ball of 

the Revolution." 

The pov/er of eloquence has ever exerted a con- 
trolling influence upon the human mind. When 
enlisted in her cause, the orator is freedom's most 
efficient defender, and his position then becomes 
one of the noblest which can be granted to man. 
Such an orator vv^as Patrick Henry, and such a 
position does he occupy in our history. 

In undertaking to define the position of Patrick 
Henry in American history, we shall examine his 
connection with the country in a historical point of 
view ; and the relation he sustained with the emi- 
nent men around him. 

When Henry commenced his public life as a 
member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the 
first faint murmurings of the Revolution were be- 
ginnning to be heard upon our shores. Its voice 
was low and distant, but to his prophetic soul it 
foretold with terrible distinctness the coming storm ; 
as at sea the subdued, hoarse mutterings of the 
angry wind announce to the mariner the approach- 
ing hurricane. That first step in the long course of 



54 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

British oppression, the passage of the Stamp Act, 
had just been taken. Though resistance seemed 
hopeless, though the boldest were struck dumb by 
the gloomy and portentious prospect before them, 
and despondency was riveting yet firmer the bonds 
of tyranny, he, the 3^oungest of them all, stood 
forth, alone and unadvised, with those memorable 
resolutions which so fearlessly denied the right of 
Great Britain to tax America ; and, unterrified by 
the cry of treason which rang around him, went 
boldly on, until by his irresistable eloquence he 
carried them in triumph. Thus was it his sacred 
privilege to sound the first alarum bell for liberty, 
whose clear notes ringing through the land, awaked 
the slumbering friends of freedom and nerved their 
arms for the coming struggle, and whose swelling 
echoes, speeding over the broad Atlantic, rising 
higher with every gale which bore them onward, 
caused England's king to tremble on his throne and 
shook to its centre the mighty fabric of his power. 

The same noble daring which distinguished Henry 
on this occasion, constantly characterized him. 
We always find him the same bold, independent 
patriot, ever first to lead the charge against aggres- 
sion. 

In that illustrious Congress, where, the great 
men of the colonies were for the first time assembled 
to deliberate upon affairs of the utmost moment to 
themselves and their country ; when, weighed down 



EXHIBITION OF 18^7. 55 

by gloomy forebodings and the immensity of their 
task, they sat for some time in awful silence, as if 
each thus mutely ' ' acknowledged his inability to 
do justice to the occasion," Henry was the first to 
break the stillness, and in a speech ' ' that seemed 
more than that of mortal man," to dispel the heavy 
charm which bound their lips and urge them to the 
great work before them. 

Again, in the outlawed Convention of his own 
Virginia, when the cloud of terrible war just ready 
to burst over their heads, all still clung to the vain 
hope of " peace and reconciliation," it was Henry, 
who, regardless of personal danger in his zeal for 
his country, roused them from their fearful lethargy, 
and put new life into their sinking hearts, and led 
them boldly forvv^ard to the charge, by the prophetic 
declaration that nothing was left but ' ' an appeal 
to arms and to the God of Hosts ! " 

We have thus briefly glanced at the three prin- 
cipal events which give to Henry his position in our 
history. But we should fail to understand his true 
position unless we compared him with the other 
great men by whom he was surrounded. 

As an orator he was the acknowledged superior 
of all his cotemporaries. Only Richard Henry Lee, 
his constant friend and firm associate, approached 
him, but his elegance and classic grace, following 
the terrible sublimity of the master-spirit, was as 
the murmuring of a summer's breeze after the 
crash of the hurricane. 



56 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Between Otis and Henry there was indeed a 
striking resemblance in character and fame. But 
Otis, inferior to him as an orator, had also less of 
that resolute determination, that unwavering hope, 
that almost prophetic foresight which so distin- 
guished Henry, who was always the same ardent 
friend of liberty, whom no false allurem.ents could 
deceive, no fears for his personal safety could pre- 
vent from firmly adhering to her cause, and whose 
courage was nerved by inspiring hope in the darkest 
and m.ost trying hours. It was these rich qualities 
of heart and mind, added to that other higher gift 
from nature, the power of eloquence, which made 
him, preeminently, the orator of the Revolution. 

Patrick Henry was no statesman. He was but 
"the magnificent child of nature," and nature un- 
assisted, rarely, if ever, produces a statesman. He 
had indeed, "that strong natural sense and con- 
summate knov/ledge of human nature " so necessary 
to form the foundation of a statesman's character, 
but he wanted the close application, the severe 
study, the accurate attention to details, which are 
equally necessary to rear the superstructure. Hence 
he v/as unable to share with Franklin, Jefferson, 
Hamilton and those other transcendent intellects, 
their labor in rearing upon its firm, base, the mighty 
fabric of our government. 

As a man, he stood on an equality with all those 
great Fathers of Liberty, whose unsullied lives 



EXHIBITION OF i8s7. 57 

shed such a glorious halo around the sacred altar of 
our freedom. The same patriotic fires that burned 
so purely in the breasts of Washington, Hancock, 
Adams and their associates, blazed constantly in the 
breast of Henry. From the ancient hills and grand 
primeval forests where he loved to roam, from the 
rocks and streams, the sunshine and the storm, 
from all of Nature's variable forms, with which he 
loved to hold communion, he caught the unfettered 
spirit of liberty, and drank deep at her fountains, 
until her pure currents, mingling with his blood, 
coursed and thrilled through every artery of his 
frame. He was the very spirit incarnate of liberty ! 
Her grand impersonation ! As such he occupies a 
separate niche in our history. No one shares his 
greatest honors with him. No one is his equal in his 
peculiar sphere. 

As he stands alone in the history of his country, 
so does he in the history of the world. Nowhere 
else do we find a man of like character, or one who 
occupied a similar position. As Nature by some 
strange freak has covered our land with her grand- 
est works, in seeming derision of her puny efforts 
in other countries ; as she has given to us Niagara 
— that wonder of waters ; has here spread out her 
largest lakes, stretched her longest rivers and piled 
her loftiest mountains ; so did she by a still stranger 
freak give to us our Henry, whose innate eloquence 
should mock the highest attainments of art. 

5 



58 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Such was Patrick Henry — the forest-born orator 
of the Revolution — and such a proud position does 
he occupy among his compeers. As my imagina- 
tion carries me back to those dark and trying, but 
glorious days, v/hen this nation was convulsed with 
the terrible throes of her birth, I seem to see him, 
a bright star amidst a mighty constellation, urging 
on his countrymen and breathing into them his own 
lofty sentiments. Methinks •! see him, as in 1775 
he stood in the Richmond Convention — its guiding 
genius — as with outstretched arms, his eloquent 
form extended to its utmost height, his every feature 
kindling with inspiration, and eyes in which the 
fires of eloquence burned as they never burned 
before in eyes of mortal man, he gave utterance to 
that God-like declaration, — ''Give me liberty, or 
give me death ! " 

Long as these sublime words shall be the watch- 
words of freemen, and they will be such v/hile the 
love of liberty shall thrill the hearts of men, will 
be cherished the name and the fame of Patrick 
Kenry, growing brighter and brighter, as the prej- 
udices which still linger around the scenes in which 
he was an actor, shall fade and be lost to viev/. 



EXHIBITION OF 1353. 

" The Progress of Popular Sovereignty," 

William Lucas Bostwick, 
Henry Clay Howe. 

"Unconscious Influence," 

Albert Erdman, 
Ansel Judd Northrup, 
Frederick Dwigkt Seward. 

" Sympathy as a Means of Reform," 

George James Sicard. 

" American Indebtedness to Alexander Hamilton." 

"The Legacy of Athens to English Literature." 



UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. 



BY FREDERICK D. SEWARD. 



MICHAEL ANGELO pairxted a fresco of the 
''Naming of the Animate Creation." In the 
centre is a broad valley, which, full of Eden 
perfumes and rhythms, is set around with mioun- 
tains, up whose sides wander herbage and blossom; 
succeeded by shaggy cedars, creeping to the edge 
of the snow ; until finally the eye rests on the 
clouds, who, eagerly watching, are fast anchored 
to the summits. 

In the valley is Adam, the centre of a vast con- 
gregation, where is represented all on earth that 
lives. Close around cluster the most tiny and 



6o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

weak ; then in widening circles, the beasts wait, 
with the beauty and mildness of first creation ; then, 
the birds, with their glistening plumage and airy 
lightness of motion. And, beyond beast and bird, 
beyond mountain peak and the audience of clouds, 
in amphitheatral state, are gathered the unnum- 
bered numbers of heaven, crowding together to the 
very zenith, where the outstreaming glory of light 
shows God as watching his creatures, still unfallen 
and of worthy beauty. 

This picture is repeated in the life of every man. 
Some see only a sensual world — the beasts and the 
birds ; some glance higher to the mountain peaks 
and the clouds ; and some see the gathered angels 
and God's unceasing watch and guard ; but in his 
own personality, each, like Adam, stands alone, the 
centre of the world. 

And can we rightly consider man as a central power 
in the world } One man, amid the millions ! One 
life in a world of life ! One helpless mortal, amid 
the hosts of seraphs and archangels ! Can he be a 
cause of influence — of unconscious influence ; this 
speck of animate matter affect a world .'' 

In answering these questions we shall consider, 

I. The nature and source of influence. 

II. The cause of unconscious influence, and 
the proofs of its reality. 

III. The manner of its exercise. 

IV. The extent and significance of unconscious 
influence. 



EXHIBITION OF 185s ■ 6 1 

L What is the influence, where does it reside, 
and how do we know its reahty ? 

Influence is power in exercise. Power, then, de- 
termines the locahty of influence. The senses can 
gain only results ; power itself is not seen or heard 
or touched. But v/hen we look within, the idea of 
power is there suggested by the antecedence and 
sequence of the natural world, by the control of the 
will over the mind and over the body. These cases 
appeal directly and purely to the mind ; power, 
then, must be an attribute of the human mind ; 
and influence be mental action. 

To the truth of this, each one's observation and 
consciousness testifies. An intuitive conviction af- 
firms that in every operation or exercise of the mind 
power is involved. The likeness to God in which 
man is created, is another proof, since power must 
reside in deity ; and the likeness cannot be solely 
moral, because the moral being is based on the in- 
tellectual. 

Power and influence are abstract — spiritual — but 
the existence of mind itself is pledge and proof of 
their reality. Influence is thus the results follow- 
ing an active power which can reside only in the 
mind. 

II. What is the cause of unconscious influ- 
ence, and the proofs of its reality } Influence is 
unconscious, because not gained by the perception 
of the originator. 



62 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

The mind is like the ancient god of the Hindoos, 
who could create nothing" mortal. With the body 
as a tool, she frames deeds, and gives forth speech, 
that have undying influence. But she is also de- 
pendent on the body, and can reach out into the 
world only v/ith the senses ; and these her vassels 
are fettered by time, eluded by spirit, and stolen 
away by death. 

All of the mind's life that is revealed Vv^orks effects 
in other minds, whither the senses cannot follow. 
From that realm no miasma of perfumes comes 
wafting back the story of results ; no answering 
echo of joy or of v/ailing is heard ; no demons or 
bright spirits embody the reality of inner life. 
Throughout history vv^e can see influence thus un- 
consciously exerted. Actions, though trivial, work 
out mighty results. Life was carelessly lived, as 
though it were the passage of a frail bark over a 
mighty ocean ; and the winds and the waves closed 
after and retain no impress ; but we can see the 
rippling about the keels rising in surging waves on 
distant shores, the gentle breeze, the beating tem- 
pest, as charged to the safety or the shipwreck of 
many another voyager. 

Influence is unconscious again, because not be- 
coming the subject of reflected consciousness. 

Consciousness is the norm^al condition of the 
mind, in which it takes cognizance of its own 
states and operations. This consciousness relates 



EXHIBITION OF iSjS. ^^^ 

purely to the mind, and is confined to the present. 
But influence results both within and without, and 
involves the idea of time. Attention and memory 
must preserve the conscious act ; when they do not 
thus combine, the influence becomes unconscious. 

The mind is in this manner unaware of its own 
states and operations from^ two causes, rapidity of 
thought and habit. 

The rapidity of thought is beyond analogy or de- 
fining statement. The ver}^ conception of physical 
rapidit}^ — the lightning fl_ash, the beam of light, 
the waves of sound — proves their lagging tardil}/ 
behind the mind. Does not one met by sudden 
danger seem to act without thought 1 Could he act 
at all without volition .^ Could there be volition 
v/ithout previous perception, reasoning, judgment } 
Let a man's life depend upon his sudden cries for 
help. Can you measure the reasoning process 
which determines him to cry out } Will hundredths 
of seconds time the search for words, for syllables, 
for letters .? Attention that should preserve such 
mental processes can gather only results ; the suc- 
cession of thought was like the scenes by the light- 
ning flashed down before us, and as suddenly carried 
away. 

Habit again causes various and multiplied volition 
to cling together. So slight and usual becomes the 
task, that the mind is not aw^are of labor. And the 
influence of daily, hourly life becomes unconscious, 



64 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

because not only are the volitions of the process 
lost, but attention fails to report the very result. 
So quick and unnoticed is the action of habit, that 
philosophers have thought its workings mechanical, 
automatic. As though habit framed and built up 
within the mind a wondrous mechanism, where 
clattering wheels and clanking cogs are reflected by 
the silent, unseen faculties, and coarse, decaying 
products by subtile, undying thought. 

But if action thus unconscious is produced, how 
do we know its existence } It is verified by internal 
experience. Each one knows himself not swayed 
by isolated motives and passion ; knows that to ac- 
complish his life more was needful than the simple 
volitions he can recollect. He may not be aware 
of the power of habit or the rapidity of thought ; 
but he knows that the blanks which memory leaves 
are not empty or unmeaning. Thought may bring 
worlds suddenly to view, but not without they were 
first created. The ruling passion that accomplished 
the victory is remembered, but there was not need- 
ful a forgotten army } The fair hope that present- 
ed the blazoned banner, and urged on with her 
Godspeed, could not alone have woven the warp 
or broidered in the woof. The dastard fear would 
not have made us shrink away, losing honor and 
position, had he not been the foremost coward of 
whole battalions. 

We gain only the outline of history's long proces- 



EXHIBIT ION OF 1838. 65 

sion ; yet know there have alway been parents and 
children and lovers ; alway homes, jewels set about 
love ; alway the fears, hopes, afflictions of personal 
life. So though the power of thought and habit 
may have disciplined and mechanized the mind 
into unconsciousness, we yet know they acted in a 
continuous and crowded life, and accomplished pur- 
poses with the aid of unremembered servitors. 

III. In what manner is unconscious influence 
exercised t It is exerted first by the exemplification 
in the life of good and bad principles. Whether 
followed or neglected, good principles are in the 
world, and give to life potency and meaning. Nei- 
ther can men utterly fail of their perceptions. Con- 
science may be lulled and stupefied, but not killed ; 
it is part of the immortal soul. 

The moral force of example is universal inappli- 
cation. Daily labors may only be appeciated by a 
class ; but the moral meaning of a life all know. 
This influence is unconscious because exerted on 
every human being. Action, the most trivial ; word, 
the most careless, each makes impress. Its word- 
ings cannot be followed, since not felt by reason of 
study or culture, but faculties that are part of every 
soul, and derive power from a creating deity. 

Look at Voltaire. See how his daily speech was 
full of sneers at Christianity, and sarcasms at its 
professors. Follow this influence from those about 
him, the leaders of Europe, down among the people. 



66 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Could Voltaire see, as we even, how his daily life 
at Paris and Potsdam and Ferney v/as undermining 
faith ; unsettling governments ; preparing for war 
and revolutions ? 

Unconscious influence is exerted by character as 
resulting in reputatioji. The effect of action can- 
not return to the consciousness. While the physi- 
cal results may be traced a little way, no insight 
can be gained into other minds. And in forming 
the character of others, reputation exerts its great- 
est influence. Gleams and bursts may comie back, 
but very little knowledge is after all gained even of 
one's reputation or of its effects. Those weaving 
the famed Gobelin tapestry see only a confused 
mesh of threads, not the life and beauties of the 
pictures. So the story of a life is woven by one 
knowing the crowd of circumstances, and feeling 
the warping influences ; but looking in this world 
upon his work. The Chinese mechanics know no 
more than to copy defects and injuries ; so charac- 
ters are often built up in a blind imitation of mis- 
takes and weaknesses. Men grov/ up together as 
do the trees of a forest. A tree with twisted limbs 
and leaning trunk always has a neighbor tree in- 
clined and contorted. So a m_an v/ith bad, mis- 
shapen character has friends like unto him. Has 
not Napoleon left an influence in France making 
the drumbeat pleasant ; war, a gay pageantry ; 
peace, a tiresome disgrace } If a pure and noble 



EXHIBITION OF 1838. 67 

chsTacter give forth a reputation ; an influence will 
flow out sweet and refreshing. Has not Florence 
Nightengale made women more beautiful by the 
weary months she went about the hospital of Scutari, 
her shadow gratefully kissed by the rude soldier ? 
The reputation gained by character lives after death, 
a vital and active power. Byron gilded over de- 
praved thought with brillia.ncy, and m.ade a bad life 
seem an element of genius. Through two genera- 
tions has his reputation withered and blasted in its 
influence all pure and noble aspirations. Shelley's 
blasphemies against God and religion would have 
been despised in a profligate ; by a pure life and 
generous conduct he made them to many seem 
worthy a gifted mind and an earnest, truth-loving 
heart. 

Character lives in history. There are those v/ho 
trampled all the nobleness of their manhood and 
their womanhood in the dust, and whose crimes 
cried unto heaven ; they are the beacon lights of 
v/arning. There is the bright list of those who 
have kept present in history a record of true and 
honorable deeds ; they are the guiding stars of 
example. 

An unconscious influence is exerted by the action 
of the mind v/idel}^ diffused. Words are agents 
of influence. The}'^ go up and down the earth, 
helping the need}^ You can look into them for 
historv, as did Solomon into his mirror, in v/hose 



68 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

crystal depths were hid all the doings of the king's 
enemies. Deeds of magic can be wrought with 
words that dwarf Scheherezade's stories. Battles 
can be fought with them for weapons ; aye, and 
they can be sweeter and pleasanter than caresses. 

Are those who found and enrich a language at 
all aware of this influence } Can they follow words, 
as they become part of other minds, and descend 
from generation to generation } 

When the mind busies itself in science and art, 
her discoveries are mighty in their unconscious in- 
fluence. Did Galileo, watching the lamp in the 
church at Pisa, know that the pendulum would beat 
off the years of human life, determine the weight 
and figure and orbit of the earth, and prove the 
law by which the sun, in his leash of gravitation, 
holds fast thousands of glittering worlds in space, 
and drives them unresisting through their unseen 
orbits } 

Unconscious influence is embodied in the book. 
^ ^ A book is the incarnation of thought. When 
thus embodied and embrained, thought walks the 
earth a living being." Hov/ has Bunyan's Pilgrim 
wandered over all Christendom, with many beauti- 
ful eyes dim with weeping as they watch his toil- 
some way, and many earnest men shouting for joy 
as he passes safe over into the Celestial City. 

Over half a continent, generations of buried 
Mussulmans circle about Mecca, the skeleton armies 



EXHIBITION OF 1838. 69 

of those who have sought the houries and the nectar 
and continual blossoming and fruitage of the Koran's 
paradise. 

By the record of the studies wherewith he whiled 
away pleasant hours, Bacon changed the science of 
thought, and prepared the way for Newton's laws, 
by which the world — the universe, is governed. 

IV. What is the extent and significance of un- 
conscious influence } 

It is an integral element in the shaping of every 
human life. It crowds the soul with spirits, more 
potent than those, who, where at night the sun had 
gone down upon a desert, built for Aladdin a fair 
palace, whose forty golden casements were shone 
upon by the first rays of the rising sun. 

Unconscious influences are about each life, as 
the angels of the Jewish Rabbis, which in armies of 
thousands on either hand, contended the good 
against the bad, about his every word and action. 

Unconscious influence controls the destiny of 
nations. Acting in their history, fencing them in 
with customs, swaying their course by precedents. 
Little thought had the group at Dothan, as they 
watched the caravan creeping slowly into the dis- 
tance of the desert, that the Joseph so easily sent 
from their envious sight, would feed them in famine, 
give to their children a Goshen and a Canaan, and 
link together the patriarchs and the nation in the 
founding of the Jewish theocracy. 



70 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Unconscious influence has ruled in the monarchs 
of the world, framing governments, and building 
up kingdoms. Follow the path of history. Un- 
conscious influence has led empire from India's 
spicy summers, past Arabia's houries, past the 
Turk's seraglios, where along the Rhine the grapes 
are changing moonlight into wine, to England's 
larded streams — armies of prosperity ; and to where 
the mines and prairies make the lake a field of gold. 

When the last generation shall pass from earth, 
and the nations assemble about the great white 
throne, then v/ill Omniscience, in the records of the 
world's life, reveal the extent and eternal meaning 
of Unconscious Influence. 



EXHIBITION OF 1358. 

" The Weakness of Skepticism," 

Charles Anthony Hawley, 
John Herschell Morron. 

"Moral Principle a Condition of Mental Power," 
Harlan Page Lloyd, 
Hector Voltaire Loving. 

"Astronomy as a Field for the Imagination," 
Horace Robinson Peck. 

" Goldsmith as a Representative Irishman," 
Joseph Edwin Scott. 

" Crises in American History." 

" English and French Soldiers Compared." 



MORAL PRINCIPLE A CONDITION OF MENTAL 

POWER. 



BY HARLAN P. LLOYD. 



F one who had given the subject no thought were 
asked, whether moral principle is a condition of 
mental power, he would probably answer in the 
negative ; but a little reflection might lead him to 
change his opinion. So important a question cer- 
tainly deserves a deliberate discussion. 

Moral principle strictly, is founded on love to 
man and the dictates of natural justice, and there- 
fore prompts to good deeds. But we may do good 
from other motives, and only when the moral prin- 



7 2 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

ciple is vitalized by religion does it prompt us to do 
right at all times unselfishly. Hence the highest 
moral principle includes the religious ; and as this 
definition of the term coincides with its popular ac- 
ceptation, we shall so consider it. We would not 
assert that moral principle, thus defined, is an 
essential condition of mental power ; but shall 
simply attempt to prove that it is a condition of the 
highest power. 

Philosophers generally agree, that the mind is 
composed of the intellect, the sensibilities and the 
will ; and that the operations of these three facul- 
ties produce mental power. Intellect, or the fac- 
ulty of thought, may undoubtedly act without the 
moral principle ; but impotent indeed are its un- 
aided efforts. Voltaire had a fine intellect, but he 
lacked this principle ; and his life was a failure. 
His readers are now few, fewer still his admirers, 
while oblivion is gradually hiding his name and 
works beneath her dusky wing. An intellect en- 
tirely self-reliant is over-confident, and cannot 
attain its highest power ; but with the moral prin- 
ciple it at once assumes an humbler position. Thus 
confined to its legitimate sphere, it is strengthened 
in that sphere. No longer lost in the chaos of ab- 
straction, it readily undertakes, and steadily pur- 
sues a rational investigation. It dismisses vain 
speculation where God has written unchangeable 
oracles ; it directs the course of reason with the un- 



EXHIBITION OF i8sg. 7 3 

clouded eye of faith, and thus secures a vital force 
of thought. 

Milton's conception of Satan is that of a being 
eminently intellectual, but destitute of moral prin- 
ciple. However true, even this conflicts not with 
our position ; for, having so lately fallen, he must 
retain something of the nature and power of an 
angel. But none will doubt that, when at the fiat 
of a God Satan fell, his intellect fell with him ; and 
it has since so degenerated that he is now surpassed 
by the humblest watchman on the battlements of 
heaven ; while faithful Gabriel towers aloft, his in- 
finite superior. 

The haughty Pharisee of Tarsus was a mere 
pigmy in mental power, compared with holy Paul, 
who, moved with a divine enthusiasm, discussed 
the grandest topics with such wonderful skill, and 
transcendent power, that to this day Christianity 
points him out as her ablest champion. 

The moral principle is also a condition of the 
highest exercise of the sensibilities. It holds them 
in control ; it checks the baser passions, subdues 
the stronger, and strengthens the nobler, refining 
all till they become able auxiliaries. Then virtue, 
beauty and sublimity excite pleasurable emotions ; 
and desires once base are changed to lofty aspira- 
tions. It infuses enthusiasm through man's very 
nature, and gives him a wonderful energy of feel- 
ing. With this Burke and Webster won many of 



74 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

their most glorious triumphs. We are not so spell- 
bound by their powerful logic, as by their glowing 
fervor, their burning indignation, soul-felt and soul- 
subduing. 

The grand executive of the mind is the will; and 
upon this too, the moral principle acts specifically 
and powerfully. It releases the will from unwhole- 
some restraint, secures its highest freedom, and 
fixes it firmly to some definite purpose. From the 
vault of heaven a thousand beauteous orbs shine 
upon the mariner, but the skillful navigator, confi- 
dently fixing his eye on the north star, neglects all 
others, or uses them only as collateral aids. So a 
thousand motives may affect the will ; but he who 
would guide the mind aright must make the moral 
principle his polar star. Force of will is often 
destroyed by a constant struggle between desire and 
duty : this principle harmonizes these antagonistic 
motives, and, as the promptings of the two coin- 
cide, there results a vast increase of power. Such 
was the iron will of Cromwell. The once stam- 
mering plebeian now pours his burning invective 
against King Charles, gathers about him those irre- 
sistible Ironsides, and as the thrilling words of the 
ancient prophet fall from his lips, hurls them with 
resistless fury on the foe, till the haughty cavaliers 
of England, though led by Rupert himself, bending 
low before his superior power, are forced to yield 
the victory. So it was in the cabinet, where, by a 



EXHIBITION OF i8sg. 7 5 

hundred of the boldest deeds which human intellect 
has planned, or human arm achieved, he has shown 
the world how moral principle strengthens the will, 
and vitalizes the whole mind. 

Thus, in the three great sources of mental 
strength we have seen that moral principle is a con- 
dition of the highest power. 

But the three departments of mind are one in 
nature and action, and viewing the mind as a unit, 
this principle is a condition of its highest power. 
Without it, a mind will be irregularly developed ; 
undue attention will be given to some particular 
faculty, and the mental power is either lost in aim- 
less exertion, or finds expression in one direction 
only, presenting to the world the wavering skeptic, 
or the man of one idea. 

In this respect the moral principle is a harmoniz- 
ing principle, and it gives a symmetrical develop- 
ment to the mind. It does not allow one part to 
outstretch another, but smoothing excrescences, 
and supplying deficiencies, it moulds the plastic 
mind after the fairest models, blending and concen- 
trating, till it secures unity and symmetry. 

It is also a directing principle. It selects the 
most appropriate objects of mental pursuit, and 
guides the mind in the best course to attain those 
objects. 

It stops not here, for it is a liberating principle. 
It comes to the man of superstition, or of preju- 



76 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

dice, and frees him from mental thraldom. As he 
breathes the air of freedom, a divinity works within 
him : emotions hitherto unfelt, and powers before 
unknown, fill his mind, thrill his soul, and nerve to 
action. It frees genius from those vices and errors 
which so often weaken its powers. Passion no 
longer blights the God-given intellect. Coolness 
of reflection, firmness of purpose, and patience of 
hope, cast their bright light in upon the soul, like 
the sunrise upon mountain summits, rousing us to 
activity, and inspiring us for the noblest labors of 
life. 

Again, the moral principle is elevating. It raises 
the mind above the objects of mere sense, and dis- 
closes spiritual views. Selfishness is dethroned ; 
and thus the mind acquires a disinterested love of 
truth. If truth be followed disinterestedly, the 
mind advances rapidly, for thought will expand by 
its own elasticity when the pressure of selfishness 
is removed. Thus working in harmony with the 
divine will, it steadily moves in the sphere for which 
God designed it, and finally attains its normal con- 
dition of glory and power. 

Therefore, as a mind either unnaturally developed, 
or without a fixed aim, a mind either enslaved by 
passion and prejudice, or confined to mere physi- 
cal objects, is necessarily limited in its action ; the 
moral principle, having a power peculiar to itself 
as a harmonizing, a directing, a liberating and an 



EXHIBITION OF iSsg. 7 7 

elevating principle, is a condition of the highest 
power. 

To this general view of the subject two objec- 
tions are made ; first, that moral principle is often 
found without mental power ; and second, that 
mental power is likewise found without moral prin- 
ciple ; hence it is said that the one can not be a 
condition of the other. 

Now the first objection has no force, for we do 
not maintain that this principle alone constitutes 
power ; but we simply contend that it is a condition 
of the highest power of a mind, whatever may be 
its natural endowments. Yet many an humble 
man, to whom these objectors scornfully point, by 
cherishing the moral principle, has gained an in- 
tense energy of mind. History has repeatedly 
proved that real greatness and real power are not 
confined to the famous. A thousand precious gems 
have been discovered by humble explorers in the 
mines of truth, and a thousand touches of exqui- 
site beauty have been added to the temple of human 
knowledge by unpretending artists. In the long 
passing of the ages, thousands of humble men and un- 
assuming women, inspired by the moral principle, 
have conquered temptation, torture and death, to 
live forever on the lips of men, and to take their 
seats among the immortals, with brows glittering 
through all eternity with the martyr's crown. 
Moral principle was almost an absolute condition of 



7 8 THE CLA RK PRIZE BOOK. 

their mental power ; hence the first of these ob- 
jections can have no weight. 

To sustain the second, men point to the ancient 
Greeks, and to the sensuous, misanthropic Byron. 
Though this is not a fair objection to our position, 
it is often urged. 

Now, the masses of the Greeks were at no time 
cultivated in the highest sense of the term, and 
their reputation for refinement arises from the halo 
of glory which lingers around their philosophers, 
artists and orators. But even their culture was an 
imperfect one, as they lacked both depth and com- 
prehensiveness. Then, too, Socrates, Plato, and 
Aristotle, those who contributed most to the glory 
of philosophic Greece, were men whose minds were 
strengthened by the highest moral principle then 
known. The same may be said with equal truth 
of her orators, poets, and artists, of Homer and 
Demosthenes, of yEschylus and Phidias. There- 
fore, as an imperfect moral principle did so much 
for the Greeks, and as no one will pretend that 
they attained the highest mental power which they 
were capable of reaching, we think that this appar- 
ent objection really strengthens our position. 

Byron has been maligned by his enemies, and 
overrated by his friends. If we look dispassion- 
ately we shall find that many were charmed with 
his brilliancy, but that this brilliancy was the glare 
of the meteor, rather than the steady light of an 



EXHIBITION OF iSsg. 79 

enduring sun. All acknowledge his power, but this 
power was the phrensied struggle of a captive 
bound by his vices, and goaded by his persecutors ; 
not the majestic strength of " a freeman whom the 
truth makes free." Byron had a spiritual nature 
ever struggling for expression ; and occasionally it 
found utterance in noble thoughts ; but he had 
nothing to give balance and symmetry to his mind ; 
hence his errors and his weakness. Erratic and 
meteoric, he was brilliant, but not strong. Com- 
pared with many of his cotemporaries he was in- 
deed great ; but, compared with what it might have 
been with a vitalizing moral principle, his strength 
was weakness itself. 

Thus it ever is. Immoral men may succeed tem- 
porarily, they may even become famous by talent 
or cunning, but they have not genuine power. The 
real pioneers of mind, and the real standard bear- 
ers of truth, ever have been, and ever will be, 
moral men. Notice two men of equal natural en- 
dowments, the one without, and the other with the 
moral principle. You will see the mind of one 
fickle, misguided, and enslaved ; that of the other, 
vigorous and elevated. While the first expends his 
strength in evading duty, the other goes straight 
forward and accomplishes the noblest results. The 
one is the demagogue and the traitor, Aaron Burr ; 
the other is the statesman and the patriot, Alexan- 
der Hamilton. In the one you may see Pizarro, 



8o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

leading the avaricious Castilians to secure the riches 
of Peru ; in the other you may see Columbus, 
overcoming difficulties and dangers, till the shores 
of a new world break upon his vision, and success 
crowns the labor of years. 

Plant this principle in the mind of the lawyer, 
and he is no longer the "hack of the forum," but 
an able, noble, man ; he is Theodore Frelinghuy- 
sen, personifying eloquence and power in the sphere 
of the law. 

It enables the orator to sway at pleasure the 
mind of multitudes ; you feel it in the vigorous 
logic of Brougham, in the glowing fervor of Henry, 
and in the winning grace of Wirt. Unite it with 
a massive intellect and you have the statesman. 
Such a union has given us our Burke and our 
Chatham, our Clay and our Webster. It changes 
the dogmatist to a reformer, and fires the brain of 
every leader in ' ' the great insurrection of human 
thought against authority." It burned in the heart 
of Luther, and gave the youthful Calvin the strength 
of an intellectual giant. In a Sunnyvale of France, 
it came to a peasant maiden, with the sound of the 
sweet cathedral bells, and awoke in her such power 
that all the world gazed in admiration upon Joan of 
Arc. Even the mailclad warrior feels it. In every 
age it has nerved the heart of the bravest men ; 
and from a myriad champions of liberty praises to 
God have mingled with the peans of victory. It 



EXHIBITION OF i8sg. 8i 

brings to the poet those flowers of the imagination 
which are richest in beauty, and sweetest in per- 
fume. To the Hebrew bards it brought the highest 
of all inspiration ; to Milton it gave that unrivalled 
grandeur and sublimity, and enabled Shakspeare so 
to strike the cords of the heart that they will ever 
vibrate. It is the only reliance of the true philoso- 
pher. Nowhere in the cavilings of Gibbon, or 
Voltaire, can you find such a thorough knowledge 
of nature as Newton possessed, or such a perfect 
philosophical system as Locke developed. Skep- 
tics may skim the surface of mind, and atheists 
labor in physical research, but that philosopher is 
unworthy of the name, who, while tracing the 
sequences of nature, or the laws of mind, does not 
acknowledge God as the author of both. In every 
sphere of mental action, moral principle is a con- 
dition of the highest power. It gives to the world 
those '' giants of the soul," who, one after another, 
rise to redeem the reputation of the race. And in 
the long night of ages, it has been the fiery pillar, 
which has guided the weary hosts of humanity, in 
their toilsome march from mental servitude, to the 
blessed land of promise, with its freedom, knowl- 
edge and power. 



EXHIBITION OF 1860. 

"The Narrowness of Human Knowledge," 

William Harrison Beach. 

"Architecture as Expressing National Character," 
Reuben Saxton Bingham. 

" Submission to Law a Condition of Liberty," 
Area Brookins, 
Samuel Miller. 

" Memory as a Retributive Power," 

John Reese Lewis, 
Milton Harlow Northrup. 

"The Influence of Individuals in a State." 

"The Heroines of History." 



MEMORY AS A RETRIBUTIVE POWER. 



BY JOHN R. LEWIS. 



REMEMBRANCE is the basis of eternal knowl- 
edge, the great spontaneous occupation and 
operation of our intellect. Without it all processes 
of induction, all reasoning, all knowledge, aside from 
the evanescent sensations of the present, would be 
impossible. Memory is the taxgatherer of the 
past ; or rather the great censustaker, making no 
partial, periodical returns, but with eternal vigi- 
lance ever trumpeting in our ears the statistics of 
all time. Science, history, all literature is but the 
embodiment of remembrance. The world of 



EXHIBITION OF i860. Zt, 

thought and of feeHng, of imagination and of genius, 
grows out of it. All the past is remembrance — we 
are living in remembrance. 

Retribution is a law of God, emblazoned every- 
where. Reason and revelation alike teach it ; human 
law aims at it ; natural and divine laws always 
accomplish it ; eighteen hundred years ago the 
great Lawgiver proclaimed it, ' ' whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap. " Retribution prop- 
erly signifies a repayment — a reward. Thus virtue 
and vice, truth and error, invariably receive the 
repayment, the retribution they deserve. 

It is proposed to examine how far memory, so 
important, so intimately woven with our existence, 
is adapted to become, and to what extent it does 
become an agent in the great law so often and with 
such solemnity proclaimed. 

Away down in the intricacies of man's moral 
nature is a mysterious and inexplicable power 
which decides upon the quality of his thoughts, 
emotions or acts — which approves the good and 
condemns the bad. A power wondrous and 
peculiar in this — that its sentence carries with 
itself the highest reward, or the most terrible 
punishment. The guilty soul shrinks from it and 
struggles to stifle its voice as the only escape from 
the terrors of remorse. But it is only when com- 
bined with memory that conscience thus becomes a 
means of retribution. Alone, it is simply a judge ; 



84 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

decides between right and wrong, good and evil ; 
admonishes, promises retribution, but never inflicts. 
Were an act at once forgotten, the power of con- 
science would end with its commission. Nay, the 
voice of conscience would often not be heard at all. 
It is only on reflection, that conscience unbiased by 
passion and desire, is able to decide impartially, 
and to show the guilty soul the full enormity of its 
crime. Retribution neither precedes nor neces- 
sarily attends the act, but follows it. Hence mem- 
ory is necessary to the very idea of conscience as a 
means of retribution. Conscience and memory are 
coworkers, intimately bound together, and only 
when thus combined, invested with their fearful 
power. It is then only that conscience unites the 
executive with the judicial. Conscience can never 
-sting the soul whose guilt is not remembered. In 
this combination it is memory that furnishes the 
materials for conviction. It is memory that ar- 
raigns the accused at the bar. It is memory that 
inspires with life the worm that never dies. Mem- 
ory is a retributive power. 

Retribution presupposes conscious personal identi- 
ty; conscious personal identity presupposes memory; 
yet memory in its subtle and mysterious workings, 
far transcends the most rigid analysis. It may be an 
object of wonder and admiration, it cannot be ac- 
counted for. * ' It is an ultimate and inexplicable 
fact." It is the great receptacle of past impressions. 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 85 

It retains whatever has once passed through the 
consciousness — even our perceptions, our concep- 
tions, our vohtions. RecaUing, recollecting, re- 
membering past experiences, it retraces, retracts, 
renews, revives them ; enables us to live them over 
again in all their vividness. It serves as a link in 
bringing our thoughts and lives together ; produces 
a completeness and continuity. It is moreover a 
power bestowed upon every child of God. We 
may not all possess the voluntary power like the 
man mentioned by Seneca, who after hearing a new 
poem claimed it as his own, and demonstrated 
his claim by repeating the poem from beginning to 
end, which the poet himself could not do. We 
may not be able to name with Themistocles the 
twenty thousand citizens of Athens ; or with Cyrus 
call by name every soldier in his army. Yet from 
the various and interesting phenomena of involun- 
tary memory we have reason to believe that the 
mind can retain all past experience ; that without 
being aware of it we possess large stores of recorded 
impressions, so preserved that at the proper time 
they will be perceived and remembered. The an- 
cients were accustomed to write upon parchment ; 
and when at a later period the monks had no fur- 
ther use for what was written, it was erased and the 
same surface covered again ; thus a palimpsest was 
produced. A modern process has been discovered 
by which the first impressions on the palimpsest 



86 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

may be rendered visible and thus records that were 
lost for ages have been found. The human mind 
is a palimpsest. On its tablets many successive 
impressions have been written. The early ones 
have been apparently erased and forgotten, and 
others imprinted in their place, but the spiritual 
chemistry of the hereafter will bring to light these 
hidden characters, and the long lost records of our 
lives will be recorded and remembered. 

Memory is set in motion in various ways. It is 
reached by all the senses. The sudden, the instan- 
taneous manner in which memory by a single signal 
casts wide the door of its dark storehouse, where 
long past events have been shut up for years, is 
strange — perhaps the strangest of the mind's intri- 
cacies. That signal, be it a look, a pressure of the 
hand, a familiar voice, a tone, or an odor, is the 
cabalistic word of the Arabian tale ; at the potent 
magic of which, the door of the cave of the robber 
Forgetfulness is cast suddenly wide, and displayed 
are the treasures he had so cautiously concealed. 
Something "strikes the electric chain wherewith 
we are darkly bound" and instantly there rushes on 
us faces, forms, emotions and deeds we thought 
buried forever. 

' 'As on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes 
The sinking stone at first a circle makes, 
The trembling surface by the motion stirred 
Spreads in a second circle — then a third, 
Wide and more wide the floating rings advance, 
Fill all the watery main, and to the margin dance." 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 87 

While therefore in one sense the memory with 
all its stores is ours eternally, in another sense it is 
not ours. We rather are the subjects of memory. 
It is not ours at will to say what we will remember 
and what we will not. We cannot banish at pleas- 
ure disagreeable and annoying recollections. Mem- 
ory confronts us with our offences and our sins. 
The guilty soul cannot escape ; the ghost of mur- 
dered youth will not down at its bidding, but starts 
up in ten thousand quarters to torment it. 

Again memory is especially fitted for this work of 
retribution by the avidity with which it seizes upon 
great moral truths. Dr. Moffat relates that having 
once preached to a company of African savages, one 
of his hearers, at the close, repeated the entire ser- 
mon with great animation. The missionary ex- 
pressed surprise at such a feat of memory. ' ' When 
I hear anything great," said the savage, pointing to 
his forehead, "it remains there." x\nd so it is 
with us all. Our perception of great truths is al- 
most intuitive, and memory never fails to note any 
transgression, and to stamp the record in characters 
indelible. In the language of the poor African ^ ' it 
remains there." 

Conscious guilt has a terrible effect on our nature. 
The mental faculties are most keenly alive, vigor- 
ous and intensified in their workings. Agree we 
must with the dead, yet living, more than Addison 
of American literature whose touching ' ' sorrow for 



S8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

the dead," becomes the affecting language of our 
hearts. "Every unkind look, every ungracious 
v^ord, every ungentle action comes thronging back 
upon the memory, and knocking dolefully at the 
soul." Who that has tried to be free from the con- 
templation of his own depraved nature, does not 
know that every polluted image or picture which 
his fancy has formed, is securely deposited in his 
memory ; that every unhallowed thrill of sensual 
desire which has swept over his spirit, has left im- 
perishable traces of its passage ? Every deadly 
incident of guilt is a serpent attracting us to itself ; 
rearing its head and darting its forked tongue with 
a dreadful hiss of fascination. Asleep or awake 
memory enables that frightful monster to fasten its 
glittering eye upon us and rob us of repose. The 
terrible scene in Macbeth is no mere fiction. Here 
as elsewhere, "murder will out." Lady Macbeth, 
unable to rid herself of the hellish spot which 
clings to her own hand, feigns courage, and at- 
tempts to console her husband. But dread seizes 
the guilty Macbeth. Doomed to gaze again and 
deliberately at his deed of blood, in his fear he 
cries : 

' ' Metliought I heard a voice cry, ' Sleep no more I 
Macbeth does murder sleep ' — the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care. 
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath. 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 89 

Chief nourislier in life's feast, — 

Still it cried ' Sleep no more ! ' to all the house : 

' Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor 

Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more.' 

To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself." 

Guilt gives sleep a tongue. "Infected minds to 
their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets." 
What signifies Eugene Aram's fearful dream } 
Memory transforms that bloody scene into a tragedy 
of which the murderer is himself the victim. The 
buried corpse is alive again. The assassin sees fixed 
upon him the entreating look, and in his ear rings 
forever the despairing cry for life. He cannot rest : 

' ' The universal air 

Seems lit with ghastly flame ; 
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes 
Are looking down in blame ! " 

He sees himself a murderer, and every effort to 
flee from and forget it makes him remember it the 
more. 

Less tragical, but hardly less terrible, is the ex- 
ample of Aaron Burr. After enjoying the delights 
of the most accomplished society ; wielding an influ- 
ence hardly second to any American, and occupying 
one of the highest official positions in the gift of his 
countrymen ; his old age was as signal in its retri- 
butions as his youth and early manhood had been in 
its triumphs. Although he suffered no legal inflic- 
tions, memory lavished more terrible punishments 
than human courts could have prescribed. Think 
7 



90 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

you he did not again see, and deliberately, the faces 
of his victims ? Did not the ghost of the murdered 
Hamilton liit before him, and like those which on 
Bosworth Field appeared to the terrified eyes of the 
' ' deformed archfiend, " strike terror and dismay to 
his heart ? 

The inspired page is alive with illustrations of 
the retributive effects of memory. Peter denied 
his Master, and for awhile was comfortable ; but 
when he thought thereon, he wept. Judas, when 
he reflected, saw as he had not seen before, the 
enormity of his sin, and in anguish cast down the 
price of the Saviour's blood and rushed out and 
hanged himself. Herod, too, that Richard trans- 
ferred to holy writ, was so troubled by the remem- 
brance that he had murdered John the Baptist, that 
he could think Christ none other than his victim 
raised from the grave. 

Why is it we regard solitary confinement without 
labor in stone walls as the worst form of punish- 
ment } And why have criminals until thus incar- 
cerated often shown no uneasiness on account of 
their crimes "^ Simply because the imprisoned, 
lonely victim can find nothing to do but to remem- 
ber, and every thought of the past rolls over him as 
billows of fire. In the old State's prison of Con- 
necticut this form of punishment was employed as 
the extreme of severity. There was an apartment 
of the prison which was round and dug from the 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 



91 



solid rock — a silent, solitary sepulchre of stone. 
Chained to the floor and to his own reflections was 
the convict. He looks about him. One unvarying 
roundness meets his eye. His mind must have its 
subjects for contemplation. His cell failing to fur- 
nish them, he is forced to look in upon himself, 
and the busy power of memory recalls a legion of 
scenes the most sad and torturing. For a few 
days the unfortunate endures his suffering, but un- 
able to survive his agony longer, he cries out : 
* * Give me something to do — at least something to 
look at — or if that can not be, give me a cell that 
is not round — one that has some inequalit}^, or 
corner, or crevice — something on which I can fix 
my aching eye — something to occupy my aching 
thought — something to ward off the retributions of 
memory." 

There is thus implanted in every human being a 
power potent for the punishment of sin. God's 
command is "Remember," and that command if 
observed at no other time, shall, as we approach 
the grave, obtain a sad and unwilling obedience. 
At that dread hour memory will be true to her 
office, our former sins stripped of their pleasures 
will retain their guilt. As nearer and nearer the 
wan messenger approaches, the more silently in- 
tense and terrible is the power of memory. It rings 
from scoffer and infidel the confessions that come 
only too late. 



92 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

But memory is retributive in another sense — 
when recalHng the sunny scenes of the past ; lead- 
ing us back to the beautiful, sportive, joyous days of 
youth, when earth appears an Eden revived ; the 
sunshine seems to encircle the world, flood it with 
far richer glory, and flush the hills of dawn with 
purer sapphire. The bobolink pours from his glad 
retreat a brighter shower of musical trills and ec- 
static warblings, falling like pearls and diamonds, 
shattered and sparkling in the azure atmosphere ; 
and when the ' ' sun wraps his robes about him 
Caesar-like to die," the uplands in the distance are 
suffused with such crimson light as shall smile no 
more upon our prosy world. I live again in that 
fair time ; and who does not } Its beauty, its gay 
scenes and sounds echo like the ''fine horns of 
elfland faintly blowing," yet loud enough to fill the 
heart with life and joy. The memory of these 
pleasant scenes, lovely as foliage seen in water, 
are the oases in the desert of life which shall 
never fail us. 

' ' Time but the impression stronger makes, 
As streams their channels deeper wear. 

Every event in our personal history accom- 
panied with great joy or sorrow stands out like 
the sharp angles of a pyramid in our memory. As 
the poor exiled Jews, unable to forget their beloved 
and beautiful Jerusalem, in captivity sitting by the 
ruins of Babylon, tears gushed from their eyes, and 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 93 

they hung their harps on the willow as they re- 
remembered Zion, her gates and fountains, her 
pleasant dwelling places and temples. No lifeless 
abstraction of the head was the Holy City, but a 
sacred and delightful image of the heart. Hence 
it was that in their solitude and sorrow she arose 
before them so distinctly the ' ' morning star of 
memory." 

Sweet are the pleasures — the pleasures of mem- 
ory even though innocent, and through no merit of 
ours ; but the pleasure flowing from the remem- 
brance of good deeds, who shall adequately ex- 
press ? 

In the picture of Corregio, called Natte, we are 
told the light by the painter's skill is made to ra- 
diate from the head of the infant Saviour; so, not 
to speak irreverently, from the good deeds of life 
shines a light of serenest beauty. 

Pleasant memories ! They come upon us from 
every quarter and buoy up the heart under the 
severest afflictions. Blind Milton can sing of para- 
dise. Galileo in the cold dark prison can hold 
sweet converse with nature. Bedford jail, though 
dark and gloomy, can inspire Bunyan's immortal 
dream. Nor is death dreaded to the memory stored 
with experiences of faith and noble deeds. The 
grim messenger is welcome, and the dying can 
truly say : ' ' O, grave, where is thy victory ? O 



94 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

death, where is thv stiiis:" ? " Such is the retributive 
aspect of memor}^ in the present hfe. 

" Our acts our angels are, or good or ill. 
Our fated shadows that walk by us still." 

But what is the present hfe ? It is but a pre- 
face — a stepping-stone to an eternal hfe hereafter. 
And what is the hfe hereafter, but the present hfe 
hved over and over again } There is an immortal 
principle and a connecting link between the present 
and the future. 'Tis memor}' that spans the great 
gulf between the life on earth and the life of eter- 
nity. Here a veil obstructs the mental vision. But 
when man shall appear before the judgment seat of 
Christ, when he shall enter into the full reality of a 
world of spirituality ; when the mind, matured, de- 
veloped, perfected, shall be able to take a compre- 
hensive view of our relations to God and man ; 
when it shall be able to realize all the great truths 
of human life — then, amidst the woes and anguish 
in the world of despair, the doomed sinner shall 
live over and over again his life on earth, and con- 
science shall eternall}' force upon him the awful 
truth that those deeds vrhich memory treasures, 
are the cause of his banishment and separation 
from his God ; then, and not till then, will man 
fully comprehend the terrible extent of memor3^'s 
retributive power. Then shall Dives see Abraham 
and the shining- heavenlv ones from afar, and be- 



EXHIBITION OF i860. 



95 



seech but a drop of water to relieve his misery, but 
shall hear again his sentence : ' ' Remember that 
thou in th}^ lifetime receivedst thy good things." 

Or again, when at God's right hand, the re- 
deemed shall superadd to the joys of their heavenly 
presence the memory of their deeds of love and 
acts of faith on earth ; when thrilling strains of 
angel voices in the great choir of heaven filling the 
soul with joy unspeakable as it casts its crown at 
the Saviour's feet, suggesting other scenes ; when 
the arches of Christ's sanctuary fairly ring with the 
praises of his followers-; then shall God unfold to 
man the real import of memory — Retributive Mem- 
ory. 



EXHIBITION OF iSoi. 

'* Satire as a Means of Reform," 

Thomas William Chesebrough. 
"The Effect of Ciiltiire upon Unanimity of Opinion." 

Albert Lucas Childs. 
''Representative Poets," 

James Sanpfokd Gkevks. 
" Character Developed by Emergencies," 

John Davis Jones, 

George Hill Stark, 
"Intellectual Honesty," 

George Jay Xoktu. 
"The Compensations of History." 
••National Sono-s." 



REPRESENTATIVE POETS. 



l^V JAMES S. GKEVES. 



POETRY is as various as human life, and his is 
no narrowly tethered i^eniiis, whose range in 
this sphere entitles him to a seat in the Parnassian 
court as a representative poet. 

Presuming to don an humble livery in the Muses' 
service, it shall be ours to examine the claims of 
each one of the inspired throng, and determine who 
bear credentials of representatives to their punctil- 
ious court. 

The five ii"reat oceans of the earth are in truth 



EX/Jin IT/ON OF 1 86 1. 97 

but one vast animate whole, from the ghttering 
shores of the ♦ Indian sea, away to those regions 
where pearly bands of everlasting ice hush the 
waters into a silence fearfully audible. So poetry, 
though distinctly called heroic, lyrical, dramatic, 
pastoral, is not thus distinctive in character. These 
are but names for different manifestations of the 
same spirit. A division of poetry grander far than 
this, ever the same in essence, yet in different ages 
bearing the mould of different nationalities, gushes 
from the sward of a nation's inner life tinctured with 
each learned, sacred, and lovely thing it touched in 
rising. He only is worthily a representative poet, who 
thus bodies forth, in whatever form of verse, the deep, 
unwritten, only true life of the nation that fostered 
him ; and this shall be our criterion. 

When poetry was young, civilization was young ; 
and the bright Orient was the cradle of both. 
Amid the darkness of a world-wide erring faith, a 
line of supernatural light marked the path of God's 
first people. With moral vision partially restored, 
they could "see men as trees walking." They 
caught glimpses through the mysteries of the tab- 
ernacle of a distant glory soon to invest them as 
the almoners of God's spiritual bounties to the 
world. It was this great indwelling idea which 
gave to the Jewish life that rich coloring which their 
national sins could not dim. Who could represent 
the poetic spirit of such a people ; a people whose 



98 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

entire literature was inspiration ; whose poetry like 
a nimbic cloud, hung dark and mysterious, blazing 
from horizon to horizon with flashes of glorious 
prophecy ? Who but he whom the world loves to 
crown the ' ' sweet singer of Israel ? " David's very 
life was largely the counterpart of his people's life 
and the Psalms but breathe forth those hopes and 
longings which the foreshadowings of their temple 
service ever excited in the Jewish breast. 

Very unlike the Hebrews were the Greeks, and very 
unlike David was Homer. While the one nation was 
following the light of the true system of religious 
truth, the other was struggling beneath the incubus 
of an effete mythology. The old pagan fervor was 
well-nigh gone at the time when the Greeks were 
eminently Grecian. An energy in arms, a passion 
in the eloquence of the agora, and the poetry of the 
drama, a clearness and depth in speculative philos- 
ophy marked the outlines of Greek character, when 
Greece became the bright day-star of succeeding 
generations. But Homer } Homer was even then 
a name of antiquity, breathing the ambrosial air 
of gods and goddesses. Could he then be the 
poetical representative of a people whose noblest 
age came long after his own had passed away, 
and whose life expanded in the clearer air that lies 
above the clouds of a mythical faith t The foun- 
tain may be well taken as the representative of the 
stream ; and just such is the relation of Homer to 



EXHIBITION OF 1861. 



99 



the poetic in Greek character. It was he who 
quickened Grecian energies with Promethean fire, 
making her the admiration of succeeding ages. 
Her poets drew no ordinary inspiration from the 
CastaHa he had opened. Her philosophers^ dis- 
coursing vaguely though it be, upon the sublime 
themes of nature, life and immortality, only sermon- 
ized on a text from Homer. Her warriors sought 
the sacred oracle ; and the response came ever in 
Homer's solemn measures, murmuring echoes of 
that dread diapason that rang along the shores of 
Simois and reflected from the walls of Troy. To- 
day if every star of Grecian literature, except 
Homer, were sunk in darkness, its light alone would 
reflect to us the myriad shades of character that 
make Greece the classic of the world. 

And Italy had her Virgil. Italy, at once the altar 
of Mars, the cherished shrine of the Muses, the 
Mausoleum of empires ! To us she comes the 
representative of two worlds. In ancient Italy 
Virgil caught the inspiration of that poetic elemient 
that so relieves the stern characters of the Roman 
people. The poet, like the sculptor or painter, must 
be animated by one vital, indwelling idea to which 
he makes all others more or less subordinate. The 
animation of Virgil lives both in his epic and pas- 
toral songs. The darling idea of the Romans was 
not foreign conquest, though this they sought and 
obtained. It was not the immediate sovereignty of 



loo THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

the gods, nor the supreme sovereignty of fate ; but 
Rome, the ancestry, the city, the posterity of Rome. 
This was the fire that, kindled in the breast of Vir- 
gil, threw its light far back into the mists that in- 
vest the city's origin. By linking them to a divine 
ancestry Virgil conquered the stern heart of the 
world's conquerers. The songs of Horace, like the 
surface wave, are tipped with brilliant phosphores- 
cences, but the deep underflow of Roman character 
swells through the worn channels of the ^neid, or 
courses over the flower-fringed beds of his amoe- 
bean songs. 

But Italy awoke from the enervate stupor of 
the middle ages, with her nature changed. Her 
skies, beautiful as ever, were more languid. The 
clear, sharp intellect and swerveless will, which the 
north had raised to power, were yielding to the 
sway of feeling and sentiment. The painter, the 
sculptor, the architect alone had crowned the May- 
day of Italy's new year with chaplets of flowers. 
The Muse of Italy was yet childless, until the genius 
of Tasso springing full-armed from her glowing 
brain, awoke to new life the echoes of Virgil's song 
still lingering in the vales of Amo. But not as 
Virgil's imitator did Tasso become the representa- 
tive of the poetic in modern Italy. * * Jerusalem 
Delivered," with all the life and vigor of the ^neid, 
had not here its element of power. It was the 
work of Pegasus chafing at the plough, compared 



EXHIBITION OF 1861. loi 

with those inbreathings of spirit when once forget- 
ting the lead of his great master, his soul became 
suffused with rich Italian feeling, as the Italian sky 
becomes suffused with =the warm glory of its sun- 
sets. Only when Tasso bodied in song what 
Raphael did in paintings, he won the badge of 
Italy's representative. 

Germany is a land of writers and thinkers ; and 
of poets too. Sometimes this life of poetry seems 
lacking in the German character, through the dry 
development of those profound intellections which 
have piled literature with mountain-loads of dry in- 
ferences in physics and dull speculations in meta- 
physics. But below the surface there is a spring of 
poetry down deep in the German mind. Goethe, 
Schiller, Gessner, Lessing, Wieland sank their 
artesian shafts and brought to the light full streams 
of it, rich and fresh and pure. Goethe's was per- 
haps the grandest mind of Germany. His warm 
imagination vitalizing the reasoning powers in their 
highest development, v/on for him admiration and 
love. Schiller with scarcely inferior talents, sancti- 
fied by an intense nationality, was already endeared 
to his countrymen as proudly and truly represent- 
ing their inmost life ; and Goethe scarcely super- 
seded him in the affections of the people. The one 
wrote *'The Robbers," and the lawless, wildly radi- 
cal life of the university student flashed into broad 
light, with a faithfulness so minute that the guard- 



102 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

ians of the laws trembled for its influence and sup- 
pressed the poem. The other, gathering darkness 
and mystery from that metaphysical profound in 
which the German mind is ever groping, wove them 
into the strange forms of the '' Faust," and lent to 
their life the lurid light of an astrologic faith. Noth- 
ing could be more intensely national ; in the cadence 
of every line fore-echoing that dying prayer of his 
which Germany's thinkers so often breathe, "let 
the light enter." 

Leaving Germany the slow, grave, profound, 

"To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
We turn ; and France displays her bright domain." 

*'La Belle France," whose life is but an artful 
mode ! Whose soul is artificiality or passion ! In 
whose eyes things never seem as they are ! Who 
of her poets was the truest Frenchman ; the poet 
after her own heart } Glance into the brilliant 
* * Comedie Francaise " and you are answered. The 
people are mad with enthusiasm ; eyes glistening 
with French pride watch the box where Voltaire is 
to appear ; and when the aged poet stands in view 
zeal runs into folly. They make the winter of his 
aged temples bloom with garlands. They throng 
him. They suffer him not to leave the playhouse ; 
and at last giving him way, their shouts of ' ' vive 
Voltaire " follow to his very door. This was 
not artificiality, but passion. The people felt that 



EXHIBITION OF 1861. 103 

Voltaire was their own, that every pulse of feeling 
coursing through his soul, was a throb of their own 
great heart. Racine, Corneille wrote in French ; 
but the spirit of their song was kindled from the 
old classic lamps of iEschylus and Sophocles. Vol- 
taire thought and wrote in the living present, gath- 
ering sacred fire from the heart-altars of his coun- 
trymen, and burning it in a bright concentrate flame 
upon his own. 

Scotland, from the craggy north to Gretna Green, 
is vocal with mute minstrelsy. The wild life of the 
clans, the direful struggles of the Border are written 
in rugged characters upon Highland rocks and 
trampled Lowland muirs. 

Scott read this wondrous history and interpreting, 
gave to the world a glorious past for Scotland. 
But a deeper life, drawn in finer characters, paints 
the flowers of the village meadows ; softens w^ith 
grace and beauty the roughness of those glens 
where worshippers of God met for his praise ; or 
lies beneath the gray moss which time has spread 
upon the lowly slabs of the kirkyard. 

These are records far more sacred to Scottish 
hearts ; and Burns, with the divining rod of his 
humanity, found the golden lines, and read them — 
an "old mortality" to chisel from these moss-grown 
annals the incrustations of time. Surely only such 
a poet could truly represent this people of domestic 
affections. 



I04 T^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Thus the nations have successively had some one 
to express in the language of the heart what is often- 
est deep-hidden and unexpressed. 

Now, who is the world's poet ? Who of all the 
Parnassian throng, reflects most universally the 
endless shades and. forms of man's kaleidoscopic 
soul ? It is he v/hom the ' ' faultily faultless, icily 
regular " artificial taste of Voltaire sneered at because 
so barbarously true to nature. It is he whose 
length and breadth, height and depth the world 
could not in one short century comprehend ; and 
sent him down to us, at once their admiration and 
enigma. But though like Washington, Shaks- 
peare's "fame is eternity, his residence creation;" 
though he represents truly in his own gigantic genius 
all the qualities of man universal; yQ\. his nationalit}^ 
is as marked as his genius is transcendent. Not 
that Shakspeare's range is finite ; but the English 
character is, in the universality of its attributes, 
infinite. 

It is for the English race, then, whether east or 
west of the broad Atlantic, even as it claims to be 
the representative people of the earth, of the same 
blood that bulged the Saxon muscles of Shakspeare, 
as legatees of the same wondrous language that 
Shakspeare received, enriched and handed down, 
to claim him their own representative in the sphere 
of the heart's literature. 

Thus while from every nation of the earth the 



EXHIBITION OF 1861. 105 

historian has gathered in scroll and tablet the annals 
of empires as they ''rose, reigned, and fell," the 
poet has entered within the veil of the nation's life ; 
and comes forth reflecting in song the sacred glory 
of the place. 

He who most worthily sings such songs is the 
true representative poet. 



EXHIBITION OF 1862. 

"The Essentials to Military Success," 

Augustus Underhill Bradbury. 
"The Power of the Youthful Spirit," 

Charles Levi Buckingham, 

Henry Hastings Curran. 
"The Right of Private Judgment," 

Samuel Taylor Clarke. 
" The Law of Social Progress," 

John McLean. 
" The Earliest and the Latest Poet Laureate," 

Edward Walstein Root. 
" The Source of Authority in the State." 



THE POWER OF THE YOUTHFUL SPIRIT. 



by CHARLES L. BUCKINGHAM. 



WHEN Juan Ponce de Leon landed upon the 
shores of the third world, he saw a beauti- 
ful country and found a strange people. Here 
nature was lavish with the most delicious bounties 
of the tropics and seemed to realize the fairest vis- 
ions of Utopian philosophy. But even this could 
not satisfy the longings of the Castilian spirit. 
Year after year it pushed on through sickness and 
death, until at last weary and despairing, the sad- 
dened wanderers laid the brave De Soto in his fit- 
ting burial cradle and abandoned the object of their 



EXHIBITION OF 1862, 107 

search. What could be the charm which led them ? 
Surely not the magnificent landscapes which broke 
upon their vision in the full splendor of their blos- 
soming beauty; not alone the delusive dreams of 
that El Dorado where the mountains were preg- 
nant with gold and all the waters flashed back the 
beauty of precious jewels. They kept on because 
they believed the wondrous tales of a magical foun- 
tain, one draught of whose waters would deluge the 
soul with floods of inspiration, and bring all the 
elements and forces of nature under the power of a 
perpetual spirit of youth. 

Men and nations dread to grow old. There is a 
power in the youthful spirit which all men recog- 
nize, and hence arises a natural longing for a per- 
petuation of this spirit. An idolatrous people make 
their gods full of beauty and power, and then sup- 
plicate like favors for themselves. They cast their 
hopes upon the incantations of some arbaces ; seek 
satisfaction of subtle impostors ; and often like 
Sardanapalus curse the nature which will not renew 
a spirit wasted in debauchery and crime. In en- 
lightened ages, men almost believe their fancies 
when they imagine the existence of some enchanted 
region where decay never enters. They love to 
review that old legend of the Fountain of Youth, 
whose waters are a panacea for all the ills of time. 
Here the mysterious Ethiopians gained an immor- 
tality on earth. Here sport the nymphs of wood 



io8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

and water, and the Muses revel in the deHghts of 
never ending bloom. Oh, could they have knov^n 
that the only spring of eternal life is in that land 
where there is no time ; could they have realized 
that he who tasted of its waters would never step 
back from the fountain ; Ponce de Leon and De 
Soto might have rested in peace in their own Anda- 
lusia, and the Father of Waters would murmur 
fainter mournings on its way to the sea. 

However much there may be said about folly and 
rashness and indiscretion, men will believe in the 
power of the youthful spirit. "Lusty youth," they 
say, "is the very May morn of delight," and they 
would not wish to think otherwise. St. John af- 
firmed its power when in words of love he said : 
"I have written unto 3^ou, young men, because ye 
are strong." Statesmen and philosophers affirm it 
when they rest upon it the safety and liberties of 
the people. All history affirms it, as in the bloody 
records of thick-crowding battle-fields, we read its 
sturdy triumphs over darkness and oppression. 

We see then that all men recognize the power of 
the youthful spirit and strive for its continuance. 
In what consists this power which so enlists the de- 
sires and admiration of the world t 

There is a faith in the spirit of youth which is 
not always seen in age. The young soul believes 
that the world was created for some good purpose ; 
that man was sent into it to fulfill a mission ; and 



EXHIBITION OF 1862. 109 

not to wildly wander in a wilderness of doubts. It 
looks back over the history of the race and sees a 
glittering record of the triumphs of truth. What 
should it do but rejoice and go at its work } And 
so it does ; but even then with greater faith in the 
future than reverence for the past. Youth is not 
so skeptical as age about receiving new truths, 
though they may overturn theories which are the 
delight of the world. Hence we hear the Apostle 
of the Reformation exclaim, ' ' We shall see the 
rising generation receive the true theology, which 
these old men, wedded to their vain and fantastical 
opinions, now so obstinately reject. 

Hope is also an element of this power, and is 
wedded to faith in all the aspirations of the youth- 
ful spirit. Hope anticipates success, and in its 
warm glow toil turns to pleasure. Sometimes in- 
deed it brings too strong assurances, but oftener it 
is the sure harbinger of victory. Faith gives an 
impulse towards truth, and hope brings a buoyancy 
to the spirits which ensures a noble struggle. 

' ' Faith is the rainbow bridge across 
To the garden we stand in, singing aloud, 
And hope is the angel, that holds our hands 
Leading us up to God." 

But faith and hope are not alone. There is a 
warm sympathy in youth — a sympathy which 
ripens into charity. It was this that sent the 
saintly shadow of Florence Nightengale, flitting on 



1 1 c TA'B CLAJ^K PRIZE BOOK. 

its mission of love before the wounded soldiers of 
the Crimea ; and her noble example is now being 
imitated by Dorothea Dix and all the ministering 
angels who bless the hospitals of freedom in Amer- 
ica. Tills s\niipathy too is reciprocal in its nature. 
It ^rds men tosrether with the indissoluble bands of 
brotherly love ; and thus inspires holier thoughts, 
excites purer actions, secures nobler conquests. 

These three then, faith, hope and sympathy, are 
the elements of power in the youthful spirit. 
They carr)' with them energy, enthusiasm, courage 
and all the qualities which ensure success. These 
three with truth as a sword, have battled and 
triumphed in ever}' conflict with error and oppres- 
sion. They drew the beauty and perfection of 
Grecian civiUzation out from the mists of pagan 
obscurity. They led the advance of God's Refor- 
mation against the dark and frowning walls of 
corrupt Catholicism, and to-day in our own land, 
faith, hope and sympathy are gathering the hosts 
of the republic and hurling them like bolts of love 
upon the fronts of the enemies of freedom. 

Let us notice for a moment some of the achieve- 
ments of the youthful spirit in the past ; some of 
the successes which the world calls the triumphs of 
early genius. In the realm of letters, we find that 
Bacon conceived the design of overthrowing the 
philosophy of Aristotle at the age of sixteen. At 
twent3'-one Philip Melancthon had started a revolu- 



EXHIBIl ION OF 1862. 1 1 1 

tion of thought in Germany. Demosthenes, Cicero, 
Burke and Webster, all made their reputation in 
early life ; and so in history did Prescott, Motley 
and Macaulay. In theology we need but mention 
Martin Luther and John Calvin. 

All poets are young — at least we love to think 
them young ; and fancy would almost tell us that 
Milton and Homer were made blind that age might 
never look from the windows of the soul. 

So in the fine arts, with Phidias, we proudly re- 
member our own Crawford. Raphael readorned the 
walls of the Vatican and died while yet a young 
man. Before middle life, Giotto was loaded with 
riches at Rome for the beauties that he had left 
there ; and the towering dome of St. Peters will 
forever mutely speak of the youthful conceptions of 
Michael Angelo. 

Turning to the science of arms, we find David 
and Jonathan leading the armies of-^the Lord in the 
days of Israel's kings ; Alexander 'leaving a con- 
quered world, as the record of thirty-five ambitious 
years; Hannibal and Scipio, in-whom two civiliza- 
tions faced each other before the gates of Rome ; 
and him whose requiem the mournful waves on St. 
Helena sounded when he went to answer for the 
triumphs of his power. 

But we would not forget that not in youth alone 
are all the conquests of the youthful spirit. When 
the chisel of Phidias was polished to adorn the 



1 1 2 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Parthenon he found the guardian goddess of Athens 
with a grave and serious countenance; and reaHzing 
that in the ideal, wisdom must overcome decay, the 
new chryselephantine Minerva came from his hands 
triumphant in the bloom of joyous youth. So in 
life, those who approach nearest to perfect men, 
preserve through all their days most of the spirit of 
youth. What sublimer spectacle than that of 
Copernicus correcting his proof sheets on the couch 
of death ; of Mozart writing his requiem while the 
dark angel w^as drawing the curtain before the vis- 
ions of earth ; or Humboldt watching with silent 
satisfaction the gradual decay of the body which 
binds his own soul to earth, and faithfully devoting 
his declining days to the completion of that Cosmos 
which is to stand forever in the literature of the 
world. Think too of Galileo as he turns his won- 
drous tube heavenward from the leaning tower of 
Pisa, and gazes upon the bristling mountains and 
frowning valleys of the moon, the imperial belts 
of Jupiter and golden rings of Saturn, and innu- 
merable unknown lights, far in the realms of 
boundless space. Ah ! ye disciples of Ptolemy, 
5^ou may persecute and strive to subdue the noble 
spirit of that brave old man, but he can tell of a 
"music of the spheres " compared with which the 
j anglings of your universe are the wildest discord ; 
and to every forced recantation will be joined the 
proud, defiant truth, " E pur si inuove.'' 



EXHIBITION OF 1862. 1 1 3 

There is a youthful spirit in nations as well as 
individuals, and all revolutions are but this spirit 
breaking through the crusts of decay. The horrors 
which closed the last century in France were the 
mighty stumblings of a spirit that had been cramped 
so long that it could not walk alone. Our own 
country is not yet old, but we are suffering from 
the decay of rank growth. Out from the sorrows 
of this rebellion is bursting a new fire, which shall 
purge a nation from corruption and bless the race 
with another victory of truth. 

So long as a nation preserves the spirit of youth 
the government and people are safe. Venice ruled 
the sea through all the centuries in which she 
maintained her pristine vigor ; now she sits in quiet 
on the Adriatic, dogeless and powerless. What a 
wonder to the nations was the early progress of 
Mohamimedanism } It was baptised in the youth- 
ful spirit. It was higher and nobler than the old, 
rotten and corrupt religions from whose centre it 
arose. With progressive waves of conquest it 
swept over Egypt and Assyria, Morocco and Pales- 
tine, Spain and Turkey, till it seemed as though 
the whole world was to pass under the dominion of 
the prophets of Mecca. But when confronted by 
another youthful spirit, disciplined in a healthier 
clime and strenghened by a higher and then purer 
faith, it faltered ; and Charles Martel on the field 
of Poictiers, and the Hungarians and Poles in that 



1 1 4 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

terrible circle about the gates of Bellegrade, hurled 
back the proud hordes of Mussulmans in confusion 
and terror ; and said to them with sinewy strength 
and strokes of steel, "Thus far shalt thou come 
and no farther." 

We see then what the youthful spirit has accom- 
plished. If it has not written all the books, it has 
discovered all the worlds. If it has not brought all 
the truths, it has led all the reformations. If it 
has not made all the laws, it has won all the vic- 
tories. If it is not all wisdom it is the foundation 
of all power. Nor is its mission fulfilled. It has 
yet to go on working, discovering, conquering; yet 
to seek out the uttermost corners of the earth and 
push its piercing vision farther towards the bounds 
of infinity ; unraveling more and more perfectly, 
the mysteries of the world and the universe. It 
has yet to bring every people to a knowledge of the 
Father and the Saviour, thus belting the nations 
with the golden girdle of love. And when at last 
the dawn of its millennium approaches, it will ascend 
to sit forever, 

" With the angel tinder the Seprioths 
Hard by the antique mystery door, 
Where the palms of a bright eternal youth 
Are blooming evermore." 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 

"The Value of Authority in Matters of Opinion," 

Samuel Hawley Adams, 

Charles Van Norden. 
"The Results of Discovery and Invention compared with 
the Conceptions of the Imagination," 

Linus Parsons Bissell, 

Austin Knapp Hoyt. 
" ' Paradise Lost' and the ' Divine Comedy,' " 

Horace Publius Virgilius Bogue. 
"The Effect of Political Revolutions upon Literature," 

DwiGHT Morgan Lee. 
" Conscience as a Legal Sanction." 
"The Essentials to Permanent Political Success." 



PARADISE LOST" AND THE "DIVINE COMEDY.' 



BY HORACE P. V. BOGUE. 



NEAR the close of the middle ages, and after 
the Crusades had wrought such a marvelous 
change among the nations of Europe, and had 
given birth to the rich and various literature of 
chivalrous poetry, the father of Italian literature 
was born. His lot fell upon evil times ; times when 
freedom and justice were contending against that 
hydra-headed monster, tyranny ; v/hen nations 
fought against nations ; cities against cities ; and 
families against families. Turmoil and bloodshed 
reigned supreme. 



ii6 IHE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

In such an age Dante lived ; upon such a stage 
did he act his part. Is it strange, then, that 
amid such exciting scenes, his ardent nature carried 
him into the very midst of the conflict ; that his in- 
tense love of freedom inspired him v\^ith a noble 
and determined purpose ; that he contended M^ith 
such dauntlessness for the establishment of free 
principles ? 

But, alas, right does not always conquer ; truth 
is not always victorious. Defeated and under doom 
of death, Dante, the high-spirited, noble-souled 
champion of liberty, is banished from his country. 
Yet for him exile is not oblivion ; it is the gateway 
to the immortal fame which crowns his name for- 
ever. 

There in sorrow and the deepest bitterness, re- 
tired into the solitude of his own soul, he conceived 
and wrote the Divine Comedy. 

More than three centuries after, England gave 
birth to a kindred spirit. Nurtured amid political 
struggles, acquainted with the corruptions of kings 
and courts, hating with the most perfect hatred 
every form of tyranny, Milton enlisted all his pow- 
ers of mind and body in the sacred cause of freedom. 
Need we tell the fearlessness with which he battled 
for the right ; the vigor and boldness with which he 
assailed error ; the purity of the motives by which 
he was actuated } He, too, fell a martyr. Milton 
and Dante were too great for the ages in which they 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 1 1 7 

lived. Their motives were too holy ; their zeal too 
ardent ; the truths for which they battled too sub- 
lime. The people could not comprehend ; the 
kings dared not suffer them. Abused, neglected, 
proscribed, ''pointed at by the slow, unmoving fin- 
ger of scorn," Milton*s calmness and stateliness of 
mind forsook him not. He was indeed immortal 
before his work was done. Then it was, that his 
genius shone forth with such unrivaled splendor ; 
then, that poor, deserted, blind poet wrought out 
in majestic verse the lofty conceptions of his mind. 

The Paradise Lost is a grand epic poem, upon 
one of the noblest and most exalting themes which 
ever engaged the powers of man. The rebellion 
of that arch-traitor in heaven ; the terrible contest 
between the hosts of light and darkness ; the over- 
throw of Satan and his myriads ; the bliss and 
holiness of man in paradise ; his fall and misery ; 
are depicted to our amazed and wonder-rapt minds, 
in words of giant power. Such conceptions defy 
the genius of a Raphael ; never can they be de- 
lineated, even with all the colors of the rainbov/. 
There are thoughts too deep for words ; there are 
thoughts too sublime, too grand, too ethereal for 
the canvas. 

The Divine Comedy is an allegorical poem. It 
reveals those high mysteries, the terrors and joys, 
the punishments and rewards of the future life. 
With Dante as our guide, from circle to circle, from 



1 1 8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

gulf to gulf, down into the depths of hell we de- 
scend. We see und hear and feel the tortures of 
the doomed. Tossed in winds, sepulchred in tire, 
stormed upon by hail, 

** They feel by turns the bitter ehange 
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce ; 
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice. 
Their soft ethereal warmth." 

Upward to purgatory, the realm between utter 
despair, and the highest felicity, we ascend. There 
the spirits of the dead are purged of sin ; and the 
hope that by the intercessions of those who still 
remain on earth, they may yet attain unto the 
blessedness of heaven, lifts up their hearts to God, 
and attunes their voices to praise. 

Higher and still higher we ascend, even to the 
golden-gated paradise. From sphere to sphere, 
from heaven to heaven, from joy to joy we rise, 
until the glory and effulgence of Him who sits 
upon the throne, dazzles our eyes and seals our 
opening lips. 

' ' To awake and give vitality to all slumbering 
feelings, and affections and passions ; to fill and ex- 
pand the heart, and to make man feel in every fibre 
of his being all that human nature can endure, 
experience and bring forth in her inmost and most 
secret recesses ;" this is art, the highest and noblest 
art. Thus the Paradise Lost elevates our thoughts, 
refines our feelings, and expands our heart. Our 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 1 1 9 

soul seems to burst its confining bonds of clay, 
and to rise to other worlds and other spheres of 
action. Then, indeed, do we endure all that 
human nature can endure ; every portion of our 
being quivers with intensest emotion. The Para- 
dise Lost is sublime ; it is more than sublime ; it is 
Godlike ; it seems as though heaven and earth 
were contending together for its high-born thoughts. 

But does the Divine Comedy exhibit such art, 
exert such power, produce such effects } No ; that 
only warms the feelings and quickens the sensibili- 
ties ; it does not sustain the elevation and grandeur 
of the Paradise Lost, nor influence the mind with 
Miltonic fire. Dante's ideality is all stern reality ; 
not as spirits but as mortals, we penetrate into the 
deep mysteries of those distant worlds. 

The Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy are 
characterized by the most perfect unity. Satan's 
expulsion from heaven, his utter despair of regain- 
ing his lost position, incite him to wreak upon man 
that vengeance which was powerless against the 
Almighty. By subtlety and guile transformed into 
bird, into toad, into serpent, he pursues the accom- 
plishment of his purpose. He tempts the mother 
of mankind ; she yields and eats the forbidden 
fruit. In that moment of sin, by that one fatal 
act, she drew down upon herself and posterity the 
wrath and curse of an offended Deity. Thus with 
the most complete fullness and perfect unity. Mil- 



1 20 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

ton traces the cause, manner and means by which 
paradise was lost. 

Dante has a nobler aim. He teaches that "time 
is enveloped by eternity ;" that the portals of the 
grave are but the entrance to a future life which is 
determined by our life on earth. It is this idea 
which pervades his poem, and binds together in 
one complete, united whole its various portions. 
To unfold this idea in its fullest and broadest ex- 
tent, he toils through the kingdoms of the dead. 
For this he endures all, suffers all. Does not the 
retribution of the Inferno, warn us of sin } Do not 
the burdens and sorrows of purgatory urge us to 
repentance 1 Do not the rewards and blessedness of 
paradise incite us to a pure and holy life } While 
Milton drives us with our first parents from the 
paradise on earth, Dante takes us by the hand and 
points us to that paradise above which is eternal in 
the heavens. 

In invention, Milton and Dante are wonderful 
and sublime. We know not which most to admire. 
While Milton describes hell in its outlines merely, 
and by his mysterious indistinctness creates within 
us a sensation of awe and terror ; Dante describes 
it with the minuteness of one who has threaded its 
labyrinths and seen its countless myriads. Where 
is there displayed grander invention, and more 
skillful and sublime description than in the battle 
between the angels } Nothing has ever surpassed 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 1 2 1 

it ; nothing has ever equalled it. It stands pre- 
eminently alone, as a monument of the inventive 
genius of Milton. During the long weary hours of 
the first day, they fight and fight again, but fight 
in vain. Success iiies hovering between the em- 
battled hosts. But in the dread darkness of the 
succeeding night, there was conceived in the teem- 
ing brain of Satan, and fashioned from the mines 
of earth, a huge and terrible instrument of war. 
And when a new day's sun had heralded those hosts 
to arms, he ploughed the ranks of his enemies with 
his fire-belching monster. Back they recoil in dire 
confusion. But "rage prompted them at length, 
and found them arms. They ran, they flew, and 
from their foundations loosening to and fro, they 
pluck the seated hills with all their load," and 
hurled them upon those engines of war and the 
rebellious hosts. Dante's powers of invention are 
manifested in the manifold punishments of the 
wicked, and the ineffable joys of the redeemed. 
He does not startle us with the boldness of his 
conceptions, nor amaze us by the sublimity of his 
genius. Rarely indeed does he attain to the ele- 
vation and dignity of Milton. Yet as he describes 
his approach to the city of Dis, wherein heretics 
are burned in intensest fire ; as he describes the 
ireful gestures of those who stood guard on the 
walls and refused him entrance ; as he describes 
9 



12 2 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

their hasty flight before the angel sent to open the 
gates, he does rise to almost Miltonic sublimity. 

In the agency of supernatural beings, the Divine 
Comedy is far inferior to the Paradise Lost. It is 
in originating and describing such characters that 
Milton obtains his distinguishing glory. Such are 
the creatures of his mind, such the power with 
which he endows them, such the majesty and base- 
ness he imparts to them, as inspire us with dread 
and admiration, not onty of themselves, but of that 
stupendous mind which gave them being, and which 
still governs them. Where in all literature can 
there be found such a character as Satan, so vile, 
so subtle, and yet in the very depths of his base- 
ness, so grand } What hate, what envy, what con- 
centrated wickedness abounds in him, pervades him, 
stimulates him ! ' ' Around him is thrown such a 
singularity of daring, such a grandeur of sublimity, 
such a ruined splendor," as well becomes a fallen 
arch-angel and potentate of hell. 

Could Dante have created such a being, clothed 
him in such terrors, infused into him such satanic 
passions .'' His highest flights of imagination, his 
richest invention, his most fertile genius, could 
never have combined together in one created being, 
such wondrous attributes and powers. What is 
Dante's Lucifer in comparison with Satan } He is 
but a monster of terrible mien. Satan is terrible 
in his grasp of intellect and gigantic stature 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 1 2 3 

Lucifer is horrible in his deformity ; Satan is sub- 
Hme ; Lucifer loathsome and hideous ; Satan forms 
high resolves and dares their accomplishment ; 
Lucifer fulfills his destiny in champing in his vile 
and bloody jaws, the mangled limbs of sinners. 

Milton and Dante are both master artists. Dante 
is delicate and complete ; Milton bold and sugges- 
tive. We admire the one ; we love the other. 
Their productions are a crov/n of glory to the 
nations which gave them birth. Many a genius 
have they kindled into life ; many a mind have 
they ennobled and exalted ; m^any a heart have 
they warmed and expanded. 

Then let the Paradise Lost and the Divine 
Comedy, the offspring of two minds, among the deep- 
est, broadest and grandest which have risen on the 
world, be forever joined together. Let them live, 
let them die together, — die only when the secrets of 
that invisible v/orld of which Dante has sung, shall be 
no longer hid from our longing gaze, but shall be 
revealed amid the glory and effulgent splendor of 
eternity. 



EXHIBITION OF 1864. 

"The Verdict of the People in Political Affairs," 

William Hubbell Fisher, 

WiLLARD Peck. 
" The Increase of Knowledge in its Effect upon Poetry," 

Herman Dutilh Jenkins. 
"The Intellectual Advantages of the Christian Sabbath," 

John James Lewis. 
"The Jew of Dickens, Scott and Shakspeare," 

Elihu Root. 
" The Providence of God in American History," 

Henry Martyn Simmons. 
" Social Culture as a Measure of Civilization." 



THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 



BY HENRY M. SIMMONS. 



THE philosophy of history is most unsatis- 
factory of all philosophies. There are laws 
of social and political development ; but laws can 
not explain history. Buckle may consider country, 
climate, character, as the conditions of a problem, 
from which to figure out a nation's destiny. Yet 
its solution reveals elements that submit to no 
mathematical despotism. One of these is man's 
free agency. But this is directed by circumstances. 
What disposes the circumstances ? What, pre- 
scribing the conditions of a nation's birth and 



EXHIBITION OF 1864. 125 

growth, regulates all laws ? Is it Zeno's ' ' Fate " 
and the modern Stoic's "Necessity?" Is it Epi- 
curus' ' ' Chance ?" Or is it divine providence ? 

The doctrine of a providence supposes no mirac- 
ulous suspension of laws, only the Creator's re- 
served power of controlling them. Gravitation is 
ever the same, whether seen in the rolling of worlds 
or heard in Niagara's thunder. Laws of light, heat, 
motion are unchangeable. But these, never con- 
flicting, would stamp nature with the monotony of 
eternal repetition. All winds would be trade winds. 
Storms would be calculated like eclipses. Only 
the endless combinations of these laws produce this 
infinite variation of sunshine and storm. So these 
laws inherent in society, which prescribe the neces- 
sary stages of progressive civilization, and deter- 
mine the influences of physical and moral forces on 
character, by unobstructed action would restrict 
each nation's progress to an orbit, and make uni- 
versal history but the harmonious movement of a 
system. Wars would become periodical ; prophecy, 
a demonstrative science. But a thousand mysteri- 
ous coincidences of time and place are ever combin- 
ing these forces anew, producing this grand kaleido- 
scope of events called history. In laws we see a 
God ; but beyond, interweaving them in ever- 
changing relations for the accomplishment of special 
ends, a particular providence. 

But what proof that this realm beyond the do- 



126 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

main of law is not subject to the despotism of fate, 
or left to the anarchy of chance ? The theory of a 
Creator overruling creation is most consonant to 
reason. Theology sustains it from revelation and 
the known attributes of God. But history's argu- 
ment is the evidence of design. Many see provi- 
dence only in the accomplishment of their ideal of 
good. But what is good } We cannot say. 
Many see it only in those startling coincidences that 
decide battles and national crises. But unnatural- 
ness is not the highest proof of divine intervention. 
Besides, we are prone to magnify the importance of 
crises. There is something extravagant in the con- 
sequence Hugo attaches to a cowboy's blunder at 
Waterloo. As if a boy's word was to fix Europe's 
destiny. It might perhaps turn the tide of Water- 
loo. But Europe would have again appealed from 
that arbitration of shot and sword. The real 
forces were not marshaled by Napoleon and Wel- 
lington. Design is evinced not in events them- 
selves, but in their relation to something higher and 
more permanent. Providence was doubtless as 
manifest at Bull Run as at Vicksburg. But a 
mourning nation saw it not. Only when defeat 
awakened the North to earnestness, when the confi- 
dent, noisy patriotism first evoked, was refined and 
intensified by national sorrow, was its beneficent 
mission felt. History then reveals design only by 
its long series of events, each converging on some 



EXHIBITION OF 1S64. 1 2 7 

distant result, some particular form of national de- 
velopment. 

What design, then, does American history illus- 
trate ? Answer may ssem presumptuous. We 
may indulge no profane ingenuity in warping 
events to our narrow notions of providence. Provi- 
dence is not national, but universal. Not from de- 
tached records of nations or ages, but only when 
history's completed cycle displays the parts in their 
complex relations can the Creator's designs be com- 
prehended. Still events have shown an unmis- 
takable uniform tendency — the development of a 
peculiar, an exalted national character. And such 
development is the ultimate result to which we can 
refer history. Character is the fruit of all a na- 
tion's past, the germ of all its future. Institutions 
and events are only the expression of national 
character, are worth nothing only for their reac- 
tion — ever weaving new threads into this woof of 
character. To-day history is not the ripple and 
eddy of incidents, but the strong undercurrent of 
opinions and feelings. In searching a design, then, 
we must look beyond institutions, transitory at 
best, beyond events flitting across the page of his- 
tory to that slow accretion of a nation's ruling be- 
liefs, which we call character — that growth which 
alone gives unity to a nation's history — which is 
itself history. 

Providence determined the elements of American 



1 28 '^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

character. When civiHzation had passed its earher 
external forms in Eastern power, Grecian subtilty, 
Roman magnificence ; when from its long sleep in 
the dark ages, it had awaked to second life, in- 
fused with the vitalizing principles of Christianity ; 
when democratic liberty, introduced in the free 
cities, was beginning to unfold through reform, yet 
checked by Europe's conservative forces — her time- 
honored institutions, her mountains, rivers, castles, 
eloquent in their old associations ; when these ele- 
ments of progress needed a retreat beyond this 
mighty dominion of a past ; then providence, lift- 
ing the mists of ignorance, revealed the reserved 
continent; its latent wealth and commercial ad- 
vantages v/aiting to clothe a people in material 
prosperity; its forest freedom, its bold physical 
features waiting to leave their grand impress on a 
national character. Hither the rising civilization 
was directed. Monarchy, feudal aristocracy, 
priestcraft were kept avv^ay. Only the progressive 
in European society was colonized — that whose 
germ was freedom of thought, whose flower had 
been religious reform, v/hose necessary fruit was 
democracy. The main element destined to give 
tone to society, came enlightened by education, 
sharpened by persecution, puritanically zealous for 
Christianity and human rights. It was located by 
providence, not where tropical clime or unearned 
wealth would enervate, but rugged nature make 



EXHIBITION OF 1864. 129 

strong and hardy, sterility, practical and industri- 
ous. 

Revolutions result from forces introduced long 
before. Providence determines their time and 
m.anner. The American Revolution as a political 
movement was inevitable. It was the maturer 
fruit of that Paritanism that had deposed Charles, 
and wrung from royalty the Bill of Rights. At 
a thousand critical junctures heaven aided its suc- 
cess. But why was it permitted at such protracted 
national exhaustion 1 Here we would see a provi- 
dence. The Revolution developed democratic prin- 
ciples already latent in American character ; the 
war cemented that character. The colonized ele- 
ments were scattered and various, with a common 
Teutonic origin, yet stamped with different nation- 
alities ; rallying around the great truths of Chris- 
tianity, yet divided into sects. These peculiarities 
luxuriating unchecked on the new soil, would have 
produced as many forms of bigotry. As it was, 
Puritanism, with toleration its early watchword, 
became intolerant. But collision of opinions 
would eliminate error, while truth by its intrinsic 
vitality would endure. What could effect this con- 
solidation } What but the sympathetic thrill of 
common danger could harmonize discordant views } 
What but the furnace of war could fuse these vari- 
ous energies into a national purpose, these scat- 
tered elements into a national character } 



I30 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



By the ultra effects of revolution, the tendency 
now became excessively democratic. The nation 
needed educating. Before political institutions 
were allowed to assume definite shape, providence, 
by long lessons of adversity, and by able states- 
men, developed but not produced by the times, 
taught the people that democracy must be tem- 
pered by strong constitutional restraints. Thus 
educated opinions crystallized into permanent in- 
stitutions. 

The forces of American character, conserved, 
directed, strengthened by wise institutions, were 
then allowed, through long peace, to establish the 
new civilization. Each element revealed its 
mission. Slavery brought under cultivation im- 
mense Southern tracts, secured a monopoly of the 
cotton trade, and thus established that national 
credit which in turn invigorated every department 
of Northern enterprise. Puritanic industry diffused 
by Yankee versatility, found expression in v/idening 
agriculture, busy manufacture, fertile invention, 
noisy commerce — every form of material wealth. 
Southern aristocractic advantages of intellectual 
culture established a higher standard of statesman- 
ship. Hayne's talents educated Webster's elo- 
quence. Calhoun's logic sharpened the weapons of 
many a Northern champion. New England de- 
mocracy promoting political and social mobility, 
made civilization as broad as society. While Puri- 



EXHIBITION OF 1864. 1 3 j 

tanic principles permeating the nation, developed a 
public sentiment, enlightened by free discussion, re- 
fined by education, elevated by religion, combining 
in its ideal the useful, the just, the true. 

Did the national character need farther purifica- 
tion? The long summer of peace had nurtured the 
tares with the wheat, but must they be separated 
only by the fearful harvest of war ? Yet the war is 
a necessary conflict of the nation's antagonistic 
forces. Slavery and secession are only its inci- 
dents. It is the violent consummation of the long 
struggle of classes. But how has providence con- 
trolled it } When the aristocratic element had ac- 
complished its mission, while European complica- 
tions precluded foreign intervention, then the forces 
were suffered to collide. The war in its progress 
has been overruled for good. It has developed the 
nation's resources, taught practical military and 
financial lessons, aroused a deeper patriotism. 
Above all it has reawakened the millions of the 
North, and made them men again. The storm, 
where the differently charged elements of national 
character seek an equilibrium, always purifies the 
social atmosphere. This unveiling of the nation's 
sins, this war of opinions, educating public senti- 
ment, strikes at the root of social evils. Surer 
than legislation is the doom of slavery heard to-day 
in that tide of popular sentiment, not merely roll- 
ing through the North, but in Missouri, in Louisiana, 



1 3 2 THE CLA RK PRIZE BOOK. 

surging around the institution's very pillars. But 
the great good is in the issue toward which events 
point. When this common baptism of blood, con- 
secrating the soil of every State to the veneration 
of every other, has bound all in a sacred sympathy, 
silencing, forever, clamorous State contentions; 
when reconstruction, bringing North and South in 
contact, intermingling institutions, manners, men, 
has achieved the grand consolidation of the nation's 
various elements ; then the war shall exemplify 
that maxim of true progress, ' ' From unity, 
through diversity, back to a closer unity." 

Then American character, thus formed and edu- 
cated, firm as New England granite, earnest as Pu- 
ritanism, strengthened in peace, purified and ce- 
mented by war, must find expression in a yet higher 
civilization; whose institutions, recognizing equality 
of rights, yet diversity of powers, harmonize with 
the constitution of the race ; whose end is utility 
and truth, the attainment of wealth, knowledge, 
virtue, and through these of happiness. Against 
this force of character, material opposition is vain. 
The river's force is inherent. Rugged banks may 
check, mountains may dam its course, but it zvill 
find the sea. 

To-day, to the less sanguine, the prospect may 
be uncertain, even dread. But the providence so 
often so signally manifested, will not forsake us. 
And what though prosperity be deferred } Provi- 



EXHIBITION OF 1864. 133 

dence has time enough. True national growth is 
always slow. But events silently working through 
this medium of character will reproduce themselves 
in grander events. Carlyle has compared the 
slow influence of great men and their ideas, to the 
lunar influence on tides. Not until hours after the 
moon leaves the meridian is the great wave heaved 
along the ocean. So events are slow in their re- 
sults, and to-day may seem fraught with evil. But 
hereafter, when their lessons have been incorpora- 
ted into the national character as ruling beliefs; 
when these latent forces, awakened, intensified, are 
permeating, thrilling, moving the nation as a soul, 
toward its higher destiny; then, though the events 
are long past, shall be seen the grand tidal wave of 
their influence rolling through history ; its crest 
sparkling in the sunlight of national prosperity. 
Then, when that sown in tears is reaped in joy; 
when this fearful maze of events, darkened by 
clouds of national grief, enshrouded in the smoke 
of a hundred battle-fields, is cleared of its mystery, 
and seen in its bearing on a higher civilization; 
then may be traced with clearer vision the Provi- 
dence of God in American History. 



EXHIBITION OF 1865. 

"The Insignificance of the Earth no Argument against 
Christianity," 

William Henry Bates. 
"The Life and Labors of Samuel Kirkland," 

Dana Williams Bigelow. 
"The Author of Waverly as a Representative Scotchman," 

James Alexander Ferguson. 
"War as a Union Maker," 

Benjamin William Johnson. 
" Opinions Stronger than Armies," 

Luther Allen Ostrander. 
"The Relation of the Distribution of Property to the Pros- 
perity of the State," 

William Oliver Webster. 



OPINIONS STRONGER THAN ARMIES. 



BY LUTHER A. OSTRANDER. 



THERE is a vignette representing a heavy sword, 
thrown across a dozen quills, crushing and 
destroying them. In these thrilling times of war, 
the picture seems the illustration of truth, rather 
than an artist's fancy. When governments lay 
their hands on their sword-hilts, and nations mar- 
shal themselves in battle array, it is natural to 
believe the sword mightier than the pen, armies 
stronger than opinions. 



EXHIBITION OF 1863. 1 3 5 

We purpose to compare, in the broad light of 
history and reason, the strength of armies and 
opinions in their influence upon civilization. 

Strength is a force known only in its results. 
An army is a gigantic force. It marches forth 
with roll of drums and proud banners streaming ; 
bayonets gleaming in sunlight; earth trembles under 
its measured tread ; and it is full of grandeur : it 
sweeps to the battle with the fury of the tempest ; 
dark battalions roll together, squadrons charge with 
flashing sabers ; and dense sulphurous clouds hail 
iron : it returns with honored scars, torn battle- 
flags and shouts of victory, and is covered with 
glory. 

But what is this power, what its effect ? Mili- 
tary strength is physical strength. It defies reason; 
hews congenial states asunder ; chains in repul- 
sive union the deadliest enemies. By the sheer 
force of invincible legions, Alexander grapples 
Asia to Europe ; Caesar waves his banners over 
vanquished millions ; and Tamerlane piles his pyra- 
mids of skulls above the sepulchres of nations. 

Military strength is temporal. Armies melt 
away ; despots are powerless ; conquerors die ; 
their kingdoms crumble to fragments. Stern Sparta, 
despotic Rome — where are they } A nation's doom 
is sealed, so soon as it throws aside principle and 
governs by force. 

Armies, preventing intellectual and moral culture, 
destroy the ability of the people for self-government. 



136 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

The horrors of war are only too famihar. All 
know the sad story of woe and desolation of thou- 
sands bleeding on battle-fields, and thousands suf- 
fering in hospitals and prisons. Thus armies, sap- 
ping the strength of a nation, pave the way for a 
despotism. 

Armies separate different governments. Mili- 
tary nations ever regard their neighbors as 
enemies. Hence there can be no sympathy ; no 
interchange of sentiments ; no universal brother- 
hood ; no union. True, conquerors, with the iron 
hand of physical force, may make a union of 
nations ; but that union is dissolved so soon as the 
force is removed. Before the Christian era battles 
raged ; vast kingdoms were dashed to pieces by 
Titanic powers ; and the effect was that the nations 
radiating from a common centre, moved on in lines 
continually diverging. 

Such is the strength of armies. It is physical, 
temporal, demoralizing the people ; separating 
nations, — a power terrible for destruction and evil. 

Demon of war, seated on thy blood-stained 

throne, God has signed thy death-warrant ! Thou 

shalt be subject to a power stronger than thine, to 

enlightened and Christian opinions, to the Prince of 

Peace ! Such is the prophet's bright view of the 

future ; such the fond hopes of the philosopher ; 

" Such the immortal seraph's song sublime, 
Glory to God in heaven : 
To men sweet peace be given, 
Sweet peace and friendship to the end of time." 



EXHIBITION OF iS6j. 137 

What is the strength of opinions ? Opinions are 
ideas — condensed thoughts. They are formed by 
experience, observation, analysis and generaHza- 
tion ; and are developed by schools and printing 
presses. They too are a force — but a force intel- 
lectual and enduring. Public opinion, firing all hearts, 
making all heroes cowards, and cowards heroes, rules 
the world. It becomes a custom, and monarchs can- 
not change it. Kindling the fires of fanaticism, it 
empties Europe on Asia, or wraps America in flames. 

Much more powerful are enlightened and Chris- 
tian opinions in advancing civilization. Inventing 
a'press, they print a Bible ; and stamp progress on 
every page of history. Under their influence the 
hydra, terrible upon the waters, and the dragon, 
vomiting fire, are metamorphosed into the steam- 
ship and locomotive ; the savage becomes a man ; 
he dives into the profundity of philosophy ; flashes 
his thoughts over magnetic wires ; and with the 
airy lightness of genius soars to the farthest bounds 
of immensity. 

Enlightened and Christian opinions are the firm 
foundation of free institutions. They are the strength 
of republics; 3^et this strength does not consist, like a 
despotism, in a centralizing power. Yesterday Maine 
and California, the farthest removed from its centre, 
vied with each other in supporting our government, 
while the feeble majorities were given by the mid- 
dle States. True the opinions of the masses are 
10 



138 1HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

neither enlightened nor Christian ; hence unquahfied 
democracies lead to anarchy, the worst form of 
despotism ; and are therefore failures. On the 
other hand, representative democracies, whose lib- 
erties are in proportion to the intelligence of the 
people, which mortgage their wealth and education 
for the enlightenment of the masses, are the 
strongest forms of government, as God grant the 
United States may abundantly prove to a skeptical 
world ! 

Enlightened and Christian opinions unite na- 
tions. Before the light of Christianity the race was 
diverging ; now it is converging. A comparatively 
common language ; manufactories, creating a m.u- 
tual dependence; commerce, disregarding boundless 
oceans — these are some of the means by which en- 
lightened opinions unite the nations. Christian 
opinions, illuminating the darkest portions of the 
earth, causing the isles of the sea to rejoice, and 
the east to answer the west with anthems of praise, 
bind them together with golden chains. Chris- 
tianity is synonymous with peace and unity. Its 
full power can not be known, till man, made per- 
fect in heaven, comprehends all the beatitudes of 
religion, multiplied by time and squared by eternity. 
Science makes union ; Christianity makes union ; 
enlightened and Christian opinions are the great 
union makers of the world. Are not opinions 
stronger than armies 'i The convulsed lips of the 



EXHIBITION OF iS6s. 139 

poisoned Socrates proclaim it ; the classic periods 
of Tully proclaim it ; the mute eloquence of the 
past and the fiery logic of the present proclaim it. 
It may be objected that Marathon, Yorktown and 
Gettysburg were glorious triumphs of arms. True, 
but were they not also glorious triumphs of opin- 
ions ? What were those conquering armies but 
embodiments of a lofty patriotism, the genius of 
liberty and the spirit of freedom } Our glorious 
victories — what are they but drumbeats that keep 
time to the march of opinions } Our armies — they 
are not composed of vassals, but of thinkers, voters, 
men, — high-minded men, who use the ballot as 
wisely as they do skillfully the sword, sustaining 
with brain-sweat and heart-blood their grand opin- 
ions. 

Enlightened Christian opinions have crowded our 
thousands of heroes on to the field ; levied taxes 
such as no despot dare levy ; reelected those deter- 
mined to crush with iron hand the enemies of our 
government, thus striking a terrible blow at rebel- 
lion and holding at bay hostile nations. The 
American flag, with no stain upon its ample folds, 
represents one grand opinion, one great idea — uni- 
versal freedom. That idea fires the hearts of 
patriots ; shifts the lines of freedom on the map ; 
strikes the shackles from millions ; clothes state 
after state in the white robes of liberty ; rears the 
pillars of national greatness upon the firm founda- 



I40 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

tion of equality and justice. Impelled by this idea 
America is grand ; and can proudly bid defiance to 
the world. 

Nations have arisen to the plenitude of their power 
only when all their elements of strength have been 
bound together by the force of a great idea. With 
the Israelites it was a theocracy, with the Greeks 
democracy, with the Romans liberty, with America 
freedom. Such an opinion working silently among 
the masses for ages, at length bursts forth in storms 
of revolution in whose temipestuous fury liberty is 
born, in whose rough surges republics are cradled. 
A fiery despotism withers and burns, and desolates 
France ; silently the people think. A little cloud 
appears in the horizon, and, anon, the wild tempest 
of '89 tears France as the tornado does the forest. 
Opinions are stronger than armies. 

Though armies sometimes support enlightened 
and Christian opinions, they are generally antago- 
nistic to them. When force clashes with principle, 
where is the victory } 

The patriots of the Netherlands, fired by a love 
of liberty, throw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny ; 
they rush to the field of battle ; the iron Duke of 
Alva cuts them down by thousands. Again they 
unfurl freedom's banner, and are scourged and 
scourged, and scourged again ; years pass ; the 
patriots raise another army ; Spanish veterans an- 
nihilate it at a blow. Surely armies are stronger 



EXHIBITION OF i86s. 1 4 1 

than opinions. But wait ; the patriots con- 
quered. No! God fights this battle. For three 
ages they struggle on ; they tear down their dykes ; 
rush with the fury of madness upon their besiegers ; 
beardless boys become heroes ; timid girls, heroines ; 
daring, suffering all things, the}^ at length triumph. 
Enlightened opinions are stronger than armies. 

Three centuries ago a little monk stood before an 
assemblage of princes. Against him are arra5^ed 
the despots of Europe. He believes in his Bible 
and his God. He boldly proclaims the idea — lib- 
erty of thought. The effect of this opinion — who 
does not know it } It unlocked the treasures of 
the Bible ; shook the nations ; caused northern 
Europe, poor and ignorant, to beautify herself with 
cities, like a bride lavish of her diamonds ; and to 
become the great repository of knowledge ; while 
without it, southern Europe, with its clear sky and 
marble palaces, has sunk to wretchedness and im- 
becility. The sword of tyrants dripped with blood ; 
but martyrdom was power ; such is universal his- 
tory. 

" Right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, 
But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim un- 
known 
Standeth God within the shadow% keeping watch above his 
own." 

Christian opinions are stronger than armies. 

Such is the strength of enlightened and Christian 



142 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

opinions. It is mental ; enduring ; the palladium 
of democracies ; uniting nations ; and developing 
the great principles of virtue and freedom. Thus 
the history of civilization has been the record of the 
triumphs of opinions. 

Armies are red swords and brute force ; opinions 
are sceptres of peace and intellectual power. 
Armies are war chariots ; opinions are locomo- 
tives. Armies are despotisms, barbarism, darkness ; 
opinions are republics, civilization, light. Armies 
conquer by crushing ; opinions conquer by convinc- 
ing. The power of armies is the power of the 
whirlwind, fearful, all-destructive ; the power of 
opinions is the power of the sunbeam, gentle, all- 
preservmg. Armies are weaker than the laws 
which control them, weaker than the despots who 
use them ; opinions are stronger than all laws, 
creating or abolishing them at pleasure, stronger 
than all despots, hurling them from their thrones. 
Armies are the towers of strength which men have 
built ; opinions are the surging waves of the ocean, 
which God has made, beating against those towers 
and crumbling them to dust. 

The dim light of the past reveals to us the forms 
of gigantic empires, w^hose mighty armies seem om- 
nipotent. A halo of martial glory surrounds them, 
then fades away ; their marble thrones crumble ; 
their iron limbs are broken ; their proud navies are 
sunk. 



EXHIBITION OF iSOj. 143 

To-da}^ history, dipping its pencil in sunlight, 
records the sublime triumphs of opinions. The 
sword rounds the periods of the pen ; the ballot 
wings the bullet ; schoolhouses accompany cannon 
balls ; and principles bombard forts and thunder 
from ironclads. Glorious is the morning dawn ! 
Science fringes the lands of darkness with a border 
of light ; and the sun of Christianity, glowing along 
the eastern waters, arches the bow of promise above 
the golden western hills. 

Inspiration only can paint the future. But God 
grant that it may be no delusive dream, that the 
rays of light, gleaming along the horizon, may be 
but the morning glory of an effulgent millennial 
day ; that America shall conquer the world with 
ideas ; that senates shall become earth's battle- 
fields ; that new constellations, composed of 
brightest stars, shall emblazon the victories of lib- 
erty ; that science and religion, powerful as the 
law of gravitation, shall bind together the nations 
into one brotherhood ; that our banner and God's, 
eternally luminous, the proud standard of enlight- 
ened and Christian opinions, shall float triumphant 
forevermore, 



EXHIBITION OF 1866. 

" Genius and Labor," 

Byron Watts Baker. 
" The Prometheus of jEschylus and Milton's Satan," 

Haines Drake Cunningham. 
" The Strength of a RepubUe," 

John Milton Holley. 
" The Statesmanship of Moses, " 

Abel Grosvenor Hopkins, 

George Norton. 
" The Position of Holland in History," 

Charles Sterling Millard. 
" Will a Knowledge of Moral Obligations insure Obedience?" 



THE POSITION OF HOLLAND IN HISTORY. 



BY CHARLES S. MILLARD. 



WHO has not read Knickerbocker's History of 
New York ? Who has not been won by its 
genial humor, its exaggeration of personal trait and 
national character ; its quaint word portraiture of 
the Dutch forefathers of two hundred years ago .-* 
Two generations have read it ; and from its mock 
historic pages have drawn their opinions of the 
Dutchman. This opinion is as unjust as it is popu- 
lar. Washington Irving did not intend that his 
humorous, though symmetrically drawn figures of the 
Dutch should induce the belief that the Hollander 



EXHIBITION OF 1866. 



145 



is an ale-drinking, tobacco-smoking, cabbage-eat- 
ing individual, a synomyn for inertia, obesity and 
gluttony. Thanks to John Lathrop Motley's history 
— that other splendid monument of American 
genius — this opinion is rapidly being removed. 
From the long hidden archives of the Old World, he 
has brought forth proofs that the Dutch have a real 
and earnest history, and that the history of the Dutch 
Republic is as proud a record as any nation need 
covet. In the Dutch, we see no more the pedantic 
rustics of our childhood, the sensual, inactive objects 
of ridicule and contempt, but in their stead appear 
the most enterprising and vigorous people in Europe; 
the most aggressive in spirit ; the most independent 
in opinion ; the most persistent in defending their 
rights. 

The country of the Dutch occupies but an insig- 
nificant area on the map of Europe. On the shores 
of the German Ocean, it was literally wrested from 
the embraces of that ocean ; and to-day, stands 
the trophy of a patient, industrious people. Its 
name tells us how, and its miles of dykes must 
have given it the appearance of a " hollow land." 
Where twice each day the sea asserted its sway, 
have for centuries stood the most flourishing villages, 
and the most opulent towns on the Continent. 

A half a century before the Christian era, the 
warlike tribes of the Ardennes baffled the victorious 
Caesar. But the great commander's sophistry was 



146 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

more potent than his army, and by his statesman- 
ship he Hnked the brave Belgae to his Roman car. 
This alliance was the first step toward Dutch civili- 
zation. Yet for fifteen hundred years the history 
of Holland is but a parallel to that of the other 
European nations. Steadily it grew in wealth, 
civilization and power. Now it makes rapid strides 
under the constructive genius of Charlemagne ; now 
it falters, halts, and almost retrogrades, under the 
imbecile reign of the House of Burgundy. Not 
until the sixteenth century does it assume its prom- 
inent position among European dynasties. That 
era, so prolific in great men and lofty ideas ; so 
fruitful in intellectual activity and gigantic enter- 
prise ; so grand in its tremendous political and 
religious struggles, gave birth to the Dutch Republic. 

The splendid empire of Charles V. was erected 
upon the grave of liberty. But during the reign of 
his successor, the spirit quickened, the sepulchre 
gave up its dead, and freedom rose triumphant. 
The fifteenth century, of dominant bigotry and ab- 
solutism, left Holland struggling under the tyranny 
of the House of Austria ; the sixteenth century, of 
budding reform and liberty, placed the Netherlands 
at the zenith of their power — independent. 

The position of Holland in history then, is the 
position it occupied during this century. It may be 
truly said that it was then the most important 
nation in Europe. At that time England, France and 



EXHIBITION OF i866. 147 

Spain were the three great monarchies of the Conti- 
nent. The province of Holland held the balance 
of power ; by the aid of which either of these 
monarchies could make herself mistress of half the 
world. The causes which gave her this power 
were numerous. Her geographical position was 
favorable, and her people were industrious, enter- 
prising and intelligent. They had made their nar- 
row territory the abode of agriculture and manu- 
factures. Their commerce encircled with its golden 
chain the world. The coveted fabrics of the Dutch 
looms were carried by their adventurous sailors to 
England, the countries of the Mediterranean, and 
even to remote India. Their merchants became 
opulent, and their cities teemed with a vigorous, 
powerful, ambitious populace. Not only were they 
conspicuous in commerce, but also in science and 
art. The invention of printing opened its channels 
of influence to Dutch talent and erudition. The 
Dutch universities were fountains of learning and 
scientific discovery. Their poetry was hewn out 
in the. graceful outlines of their magnificent cathe- 
drals, and Dutch architects gave solidity and beauty 
to the abodes of merchant princes. Music was 
cultivated, and a Dutchman invented oil painting, 
to perpetuate the records of genius. Such was 
Holland's material and intellectual position at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. 

Let us now inquire what was its political condi- 



148 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

tion and relations. As yet it was not free. Although 
independent in spirit, and fully competent for self- 
government, the Netherlands were practically a 
part of that overshadowing power which then held 
chief sway over most of the Continent. The sceptre 
was held by Count Charles 11. , better known as 
Charles V. — King of Spain, Sicily and Jerusalem, 
Duke of Milan, Emperor of Germany, dominator 
in Asia and Africa, autocrat of half the world. 
The events of this brilliant reign are known to all. 
The ambition of the second Charlemagne was to 
force into discordant union nations antagonistic in 
history, customs and laws ; to combine under one 
sceptre of central despotism, millions, for the sake 
of forming a grand family inheritance. But he 
came an age too late. The spirit of reform was too 
powerful to be subdued even by his iron will. The 
cause of the failure of Charles V. was his attempt 
to unite Holland with Spain, to make the two de- 
pendencies homogeneous, to link Dutch love of 
liberty with the uncompromising bigotry of the 
Spaniard. The royal despot attempted to force 
upon Holland the hated formula of the Romish 
Church. This attempt gave birth to that revolu- 
tion which shook Europe to its very centre. 

Charles V. sowed the seeds, and his successor 
reaped the fruits of this revolution. To Philip H. 
the Netherlands vv^ere but the source from which to 
replenish his empty exchequer. Not content with 



EXHIBITION OF 1866. 1 49 

reducing his prosperous subjects to penury by exor- 
bitant taxation, he engendered their hatred by the 
most cruel rehgious persecutions. He estabhshed 
an inquisition with attributes still more terrific than 
even the atrocious tribunal of Spain. In short, in 
a single year, the treasonable acts of Philip fanned 
the smouldering embers of insurrection into a flame 
of open rebellion, and Holland's grandest struggle 
began. 

History presents no record of more persistent 
persecution, and more determined defence than this 
war. Humanity shudders at the horrid recital. 
The haughty monarch laid waste the country. He 
destroyed its commerce. The inquisition deluged 
the land with blood. There was not a town in the 
province whose streets were not made appalling by 
the dangling victims of the gibbet, and the charred 
remains of martyrs of the stake. Cities were 
given up to the demoniac lusts of ruthless soldiery. 
In their lurid light shone forth the fixed determina- 
tion of the bigoted fanatic. Within half a score 
of years eighteen thousand innocent victims were 
immolated upon the altar of Philip's despotism. 

But Dutch patriotism was strengthened rather 
than extinguished by this oppression. The atro- 
cious despotism of the king forced the strongest 
defenders of the state religion to espouse the cause 
of the patriots. Thus they became at once repub- 
licans and Protestants. Steadily the little province 



I50 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



of Holland gathered to itself the rivulets of discon- 
tented factions, the rills of tyrant hatred, and the 
mountain streams of religious freedom ; and ming- 
ling these in one mighty torrent, rolled them down 
against tyranny and sacerdotal bigotry, and swept 
them av/ay forever. Religious persecution found 
its first resistance in the iconoclasts. From image 
breaking grew open resistance to the king's arms. 
The little bands attendant upon field preaching 
grew to powerful armies. In their extreme the 
revolutionists needed a leader. Providence sent 
one. He was the great William the Silent. 
He was the exponent of the spirit of the nation. 
Circumstances had peculiarly developed him for 
this position. For years the brightest star in Philip's 
court, he knew well the character of Holland's foe. 
To the patriot cause he brought a long experience, 
a powerful influence, and an unyielding determina- 
tion. He organized the furious mobs into w^ell dis- 
ciplined armies. And with them dealt such mighty 
blows that even the Duke of Alva crouched and 
cowered. He obtained recognition from France, 
England, and Germany. He was their statesman and 
v/arrior, their diplomatist and financier, William 
the Silent it was who gave his country political 
existence, in spite of the arts of a Philip, the diplo- 
macy of a Granville, the bloody acts of an Alva ; 
v/ho nursed it into freedom, and who finally beheld 
it in the vigor and prime of its independence. In 



EXHIBITION OF 1866. j 5 1 

his life, he was the Washington of the Dutch Re- 
pubhc ; in his death, its Lincoln. 

Never did a nation make greater sacrifices or evince 
greater determination to win freedom than did the 
Dutch. For eighty years the conflict raged. 
Rather than submit to the grinding despotism of 
the tenth-penny tax, they gave all to throw off the 
tyranny of its imposer. In their eagerness for 
liberty they cut the dykes ; they chose to give Hol- 
land back to old ocean, rather than see it polluted 
by the hordes of Spain. Ostrawell and Valen- 
ciennes, with their butchery ; Harlem, with its 
heroic woman battalion ; Leyden, with its desper- 
ate reply ; Ghent, with its smouldering ruins, and 
seven thousand citizens slain ; Antwerp, twice be- 
sieged ; the great Armada with its twenty thousand 
sailors, conquered ; Nevv^port, with its terrible hand 
to hand conflict ; all attest the sincerity of Dutch 
patriotism ; v/hile Mons and Alkmaar, names hal- 
lowed by deeds of valor, to-day breathe as open 
defiance to despotism as Thermopyl^ or Salamis. 

Thomas Carlyle, in commenting upon this war, 
once said : " The Dutch are the bravest people in 
the world. Men have run after the red rag of a 
Frenchman, but the defence of Dutch Protestants 
against Spain is the grandest thing in history." 
**Ah !" said he, " v/hen Philip sent the Duke of 
Alva and his popish cutthroats to do the business 
for Holland, those Dutchmen squelched him just 
as ye'ld squelch a rotten egg." 



152 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

From this terrible struggle Holland emerged one 
of the first powers in Europe, and took its position 
in history. 

It had become conspicuous by its sufferings and 
achievements. It stood, the beacon light, to guide 
the nations to civilization. From the blood of its 
martyrs sprung a pure and undefiled religion. It 
had been the battle-field upon which liberty had 
conquered despotism. In its agony it acquired 
something for all mankind. The maintenance of 
right by Holland in the sixteenth, by Holland and 
England in the seventeenth, and by America in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are all links of 
one great chain. The greatness of its people and the 
preeminent greatness of its statesmen, its warriors, 
its scholars and its artists, made its history endur- 
ing and glorious. Erasmus, the compeer of Luther ; 
Grotius, the brilliant star of a century later ; Van 
Tromp, the Farragut of the seventeenth century ; 
the great Prince of Orange, the first statesman of 
his age, and almost the first in history ; these are 
some of the names which adorn Dutch history. 

In the year 1608 the persecuted Puritans fled 
from English despotism and bigotry to the freedom 
of action and belief which the Netherlands aft'orded. 
There they learned its lessons of self-government, 
and the conditions and duties of freedom. They 
gathered in their souls the spirit of the revolution 
which made Holland free. They were born anew 



EXHIBITION OF 1866. 



153 



on Dutch soil ; and when they landed on Plymouth 
Rock they brought with them that which, taking 
root in the new founded colonies, grew and 
strengthened; spread undivided ; became a power ; 
asserted its independence ; maintained and 
strengthened that independence ; reasserted it — 
lives, and is the United States of America. 

Surely we, who are the heirs of civil and religious 
liberty, can appreciate the position of Holland in 
history. 



II 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 

"Is the Character of an Author Revealed in His Writings?" 

Edwin Baldwin. 
"The Missionary as a Pioneer of Civilization," 

Amory Howe Bradford. 
"The Reciprocal Influence of Races in the United States," 

David Riddle Breed. 
"The Rise and Influence of Great Cities," 

Frederick Henry Kellogg, 

Chester Jennings Lyon. 
"The Legacy of the Federalists," 

Sidney Allyn Sherwin. 
" Knowledge and Culture." 



THE LEGACY OF THE FEDERALISTS. 



BY SIDNEY A. SHERWIN. 



IN 1783, the exodus from British domination was 
accomplished. The Children of the Republic 
had passed the Red Sea of War, and pitched their 
tents in the Promised Land. Upon what could 
they ground a hope of final rest after their bloody 
pilgrimage ? They were without efficient govern- 
ment. Powerless to enforce the least of its decrees, 
Congress was begging for money, and getting prom- 
ises ; making treaties for the States to disregard. 
The States seeking to be sovereign, were slaves to 
mutual jealousies. Fearful of encroachments, they 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 1 5 5 

stood at bay, eyeing each other as Athens eyed 
Sparta ; in the first days of freedom committing 
the last fatal error of republics. With the people, 
industry was paralyzed ; trade fettered. Foreign 
navigation acts driving our merchants from the 
seas, the commerce of the confederation had 
dwindled to a few hundred hulks beating their 
empty sides against our barren wharves. 

The better to devise a remiedy for this universal 
prostration of national energies, a convention was 
called ; two parties sprang, full-armed, into vigor- 
ous life ; opinions clashed, and the contest began 
for closer union of constitutional liberty with 
constitutional law. One party, justly suspicious 
of a community of States loosely thrown together, 
advocated a stronger bond of union through a grant 
of more effective powers to the general government. 
Assuming a name not suggested by the principles 
they held, these men are known in history as Fed- 
eralists. Their influence upon the popular will, 
the impress of their principles upon the statesman- 
ship of that day, the partial embodiment of those 
principles in the Constitution, and its development 
and practical working in our national life, consti- 
tute the legacy of the Federalists. 

The Convention of 1787 had assembled to frame 
a new government. History was to be their guide. 
Hitherto government had been based upon a single 
idea. Greece deified liberty ; and when the goddess 



156 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

had received in sacrifice every element of Grecian 
power and glory, she fled the altar. Rome deified 
law. She wrote law in her books ; inscribed law 
above the gates of her temples ; burned law into 
the heart of the citizen ; branded law upon the 
backs of conquered nations ; until the rigor of law 
broke the power of Rome. These two legacies the 
dead emipires left to one nation. England took 
Grecian liberty and harnessed it v/ith Roman law. 
Seven centuries of revolution followed. Liberty, 
in behalf of the people, rebelled. Law, in behalf 
of government, coerced. But a higher power held 
the nation steady and solved the world's vexatious 
problem — union of government with people — of law 
with liberty. At first, all rights and powers of the 
British realm were in dispute between crown and 
nobility. When the turbulent spirit of the feudal 
lord yielded to the kingly prerogative, the nation 
rose to pov/er and influence. But when both king 
and aristocrat succumbed to the higher power ; 
when the Englishman found himself making law, 
as he made liberty, subservient to his own v/ell- 
being ; when the sovereign was taken from the 
shoulders and placed in the arms of the subject ; 
then for the first time the interests of the govern- 
ment and people became identical. Then the 
nation's song, God Save the King, (not the aristo- 
crat the king) was written — a people's prayer for 
Him to save liberty and law, 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 157 

Such was the picture on the canvas of the past. 
In the dim shadow of this higher power was recog- 
nized the builder of the broadest, freest empire on 
the earth. Catching the spirit of Enghsh growth, 
the Federahsts held, as the mighty purpose of na- 
tional existence, not liberty alone, not law, but pro- 
gress. Said they : The people shall have liberty ; 
but it shall not be supreme. Supremacy shall clothe 
the law. Supreme law shall be vitalized, energized 
by executive power. This cohesive conservative 
power of coercion shall spring from the people, 
**the only pure fountain of legitimate authority." 
It shall be exerted upon the people, to restrain 
license, to conserve rights. It shall be exercised 
by one central, national government, to which the 
public welfare is confided. We recognize the 
rights of men, but the rights of a state aristocracy 
we ignore. 

Opposed to this sweeping assumption of popular 
sovereignty, were minds wedded to the exploded 
theories of ancient Greece. Men, who confound- 
ing possession with abuse of power, saw national 
calamity in governmental strength. Every grant 
to central authority is so much shorn from the 
rights of States. For more than a hundred years, 
had not these States stood between the people and 
royalty's abusive hand } Had they not for more 
than a hundred years been virtual guardians of pop- 
ular liberty } With popular liberty history associated 



158 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

the highest achievements of the race. Secure in 
his individual freedom, behind the bulwarks of state 
sovereignty, the sturdy Greek breasted the assaults 
of eastern barbarism, while the throbs of his great 
free heart sent the blood of civilization coursing 
through the veins of Europe. Says the anti-Fed- 
eralist : If you do not curb the spirit of your law, 
it wdll enslave liberty. 

Divide Congress into two bodies ; create an inde- 
pendent judiciary ; answered the champion of pro- 
gress. 

But where is the final limit to these stringent 
powers t " 

National law is coexistent with national growth. 
Limit the future of the Republic, enumerate the 
dangers seen and unseen, include the last point 
v/here liberty broadens into license, there you will 
find the executive arm administering the legislative 
command. 

Such was the Federalist's idea of '* a more per- 
fect union." Inspired by it, on the floor of the 
convention, they won their great victory. The 
Constitution was indeed a compromise. It did not 
fully express their views. But when it went before 
the popular tribunal, for final judgment, they were 
its only friends and advocates. They relaxed no 
effort, yielded no point, accepted no conditions, 
until the last State was pledged to rest in the arms 
of all the people. On that day state sovereignty 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 1 5 g 

was driven to the wall ; and the destroyer of ancient 
republics, the million-headed, million-handed giant 
Genius of Democracy, bound hand and foot, was 
delivered up to the American freeman, the sovereign 
democrat, as a servant and bondsman forever. 

The Constitution, as an exposition of political 
truth, was certainly incomplete. Yet, in that very 
incompleteness, the Genius of Federalism discov- 
ered the open door to progress. It v/as folly to 
bind the present to a dead past. It was madness 
to chain the future to a dying present. Therefore, 
while the opposition strove to limit national juris- 
diction to the strict letter of the parchment, the 
Federalists asserted the imperative necessity of a 
more liberal construction. Chosen first adminis- 
trators of the government they had formed, they 
popularized their creed, and rendered it a part of 
our political faith. 

When a government lays down a principle as 
fundamental law, whithersoever the principle leads, 
the government must follow. Implied powers, 
then, are essential powers. By their seizure, 
kings become despots ; leagued, sovereign states, 
anarchists. France stood upon her right divine of 
kings. Beneath her monstrous falsehood she 
smothered all popular growth, until French aspira- 
tions became volcanic fires. In 1789 an explosion 
shook the Continent. Old foundations were up- 
turned ; French politics were dislocated ; license 



1 6o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

made havoc with law ; anarchy made havoc with 
France ; guillotine was king. Italy gave her des- 
tinies in charge of sovereign states. She has 
reared the first statesmen in Europe and banished 
them to the courts of her rivals ; the bravest sol- 
diers in Europe, they led the bands of France and 
Germxany ; the most enlightened philosophers, they 
shed their light on other lands through Italian 
prison-bars. She has inspired the sw^eetest, grand- 
est poets and driven them forth, wandering Ishmaels 
of song. Yesterday, fleeing from state sovereignty, 
determined to have refuge even behind a throne, 
Italy went backward fourteen hundred years, when 
the Roman Empire, falling, crushed Italian unity. 
Now, search our own history. What do we find ? 
Necessity becomes the freeman's plea. Marshall, 
discerning in the Constitution * ' more truth than is 
written there;" Webster, asserting "government 
above and beyond all precedent ;" Seward, trusting 
in a *' higher law;" every statesman, whose name 
sheds lustre on our national renown, has heard, 
in free interpretation, the ' ' Forward March " to 
progress. Every administration, from Washington 
to Lincoln, has pressed into service as the ally of 
law and defender of liberty, this doctrine of con- 
stitutional law implied. Jefferson saw no written 
word to justify the acquisition of Louisiana where- 
by the Spaniard found the gates of the Mississippi 
in better hands than his. Madison, in defiance of 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 161 

New England's sovereign rights, enforced the first 
conscription acts. Andrew Jackson, in a free in- 
terpretation of constitutional law, revealed to 
recreant Carolina the Federalist plan of national 
salvation. Lincoln and the loyal North believed 
what Jackson taught. By implied pov/er they 
saved the nation, put secession to the sword, 
strangled slavery, and four million freedmen bless 
to-day the Federalist doctrine of emancipation. 

In our history, then, implied powers have been 
essential to civil liberty ; have upheld the govern- 
ment in all times of peril ; have strengthened the 
State ; freed the people ; and are, to-day, leading 
us forward, step by step, in steady progress, towards 
the government's ideal. 

The body of the Constitution, as it stands re- 
corded, the accepted interpretation, is the legacy 
of the Federalists. Who will compute its value ? 
Without it, what had our Union been ? A mere 
compact of States, which the first shock of adverse 
internal interests had shivered into fragments ; 
and the Republic, with its own ruins, paved the 
pathway of advancing empire. With it, we have 
builded a fabric of free government ; which, though 
winds without may blow and storms within convulse, 
will, I believe, stand through all ages, a monument 
reared to the genius and integrity of men who 
rocked infant liberty in the cradle of the law. 

And now, when secession's carnival of blood is 



1 62 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

ended, while the nation's wounds are heahng, let 
Americans, from North, and South, and East, and 
West, gather together, members of one common 
brotherhood, and swear to pr-eserve their priceless 
inheritance. Whatever misfortune another war 
may bring; if commerce is swallov/ed in the deep; 
if the wheels of manufacture cease their busy whirl- 
ing; if the plow stands still in the furrow and the 
hand of labor is palsied ; if every avenue of wealth 
is closed ; nay, if national wealth itself vanishes 
like mist before the nation's eyes, still let the oath be 
recorded: "We will preserve the law." If liberty 
seems to sink into earth, preserve the law ; and 
liberty will rise again. Resurrected law is bitter 
tyranny. Preserve the law, for * * her throne is 
the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the 
world." 

I would not detract from the honorable fame of 
men who love the milder creed. When freedom's 
star rose in our eastern sky, their vision caught the 
radiance of its beams, their souls thrilled with its 
immortal glow, and their voices rang golden tidings 
to the people in the land. Enshrined in our hearts 
with the liberty they love so v/ell, their names can 
never die. But they will live in the work of their 
stern antagonists whom they feared and denounced 
as monarchists and conspirators. War's fires have 
consumed the veil which shrouded Federalist char- 
acter and purpose. Returning peace casts a brighter 



EXHIBITION OF 1867. 1 6 3 

halo about the memory of Washington, the nation's 
first, greatest exemplar ; and Madison ; and Jay ; 
and Morris, that brilliant statesman, ' ' the national 
extremist," when national men were few. But 
above and before them all shines the name of him, 
their gallant leader, the acknowledged exponent of 
the Federalist idea ; him, in whose active brain was 
centred the wisdom, prudence and daring of all 
the rest ; him, who labored early and long, with 
sword and speech and pen, to surround the people's 
rights with the safeguards of a people's law, Alex- 
ander Hamilton, the father and child of the Re- 
public. 



EXHIBITION OF 1868. 

" The Democracy of Christianity," 

Henry Everett Case Daniels. 
" Roads a Symbol of the Age," 

Charles Francis Janes. 
"The Debt we owe Charles Dickens," 

John Henry Knox. 
" The Achievements of the American Nav3^" 

Martin Rumsey Miller. 
"The Truth about Poland," 

James Hazleton Willard, 

Myron Gilbert Willard. 
"The Value of Humor to the Public Man." 



THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE AMERICAN NAVY. 



by martin r. miller. 



THE annals of the American navy borrov^ their 
chief lustre from the achievements of recent 
date. Its early promises were resplendent with 
indications of strength, and coming readiness for 
the emergencies of national trial and defense. The 
laurels won in the Revolution and the War of 1 8 1 2 
on the high seas, were no mean tribute of honor 
to skillful officers and brave crev/s. 

The Algerine war, which suppressed the most 
terrible system of piracy history records, and forced 
the Old World to acknowledge that ' ' America had 



EXHIBITION OF 1868. 1 6 5 

done more for Christendom against barbarians than 
all the powers of Europe combined ;" the exploits 
of John Paul Jones, whose name alone was a 
' * Marsellaise Hymn " to his followers ; the gallant 
actions of Lawrence, choosing death before cow- 
ardice, w^hose words became the motto of the 
American navy, and coupled his name forever with 
her grand honor roll ; and further on in our na- 
tion's history. Perry, with colors in hand, leaving 
the deck of the shattered Lawrence, 'neath a raking 
fire, leaping upon the old Niagara and snatching 
victory from the very jaws of death ; these 
achievements, ever fresh in the nation's memory, 
were w^onderful in their day, characterized by un- 
paralleled bravery, and involved the life or death 
of the embryo republic. 

But to us, living at a period when fifty slain is 
called a skirmish, and to merit the name of a bat- 
tle, demands the slaughter of hundreds, the con- 
flicts of the Revolution, although enhancmg our 
pride and glory, were comparativel}^ small and in- 
considerable. To us of to-day, the period between 
the years '61 and '65 is the proper standpoint from 
which to view the achievements of the American 
navy. 

When in the spring of '61 the long threatened 
civil war became a reality, the executive proclama- 
tion declared the whole coast of rebeldom to be 
under blockade, the American navy, now the first 



1 66 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

maritime power of the world, then consisted of 
seventy-six vessels, but four of which were within 
reach of its orders, manned by only two hundred 
and seven marines. This was the power, so scat- 
tered in foreign seas, so meager in material, so 
utterly deficient in men, that was to accomplish the 
Titanic undertaking. 

As circumstances often make men, so casualties 
made the American navy. Merchantmen became 
men-of-war. The commerce of the lakes, the ship- 
ping of New York and Philadelphia, — all sent to 
the navy yards their representatives, which seemed 
to say : 

' ' Build me straight, O worthy master ! 
Staunch and strong a goodly vessel, 
That will laugh at all disaster, 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle." 

To the old navy, — insignificant, but not inopera- 
tive, this extemporized fleet was a powerful ally. 
The force was small, but constantly increasing ; 
the line was long, but still extending ; the attempts 
to break it were bold, but still augmenting; till, as 
time rolled on, our navy grew in size, vigilance and 
activity; till beacon-light answered beacon-light 
along the whole coast, and the Confederacy was 
shut in from the world. And what was this block- 
ade } It was the investment of a coast, whose con- 
tinental line alone was three thousand five hun- 
dred and forty-nine miles, and, including the bays 



EXHIBITION OF i868. 167 

and shores of islands within the beat of its senti- 
nels, a shore line of eleven thousand nine hun- 
dred and fifty-three miles, a seacoast greater than 
that of half Europe. The political influence of 
France and England combined to break it. The 
manufacturers of the Old World gazed with greedy 
eyes upon cotton lying idle in Southern markets, 
hitherto obtained upon credit, now refusing even 
ready gold. The working classes murmured. The 
manufacturer trembled for his capital. The cot- 
ton famine was followed by the bread famine, and 
commerce received a check which made England 
and France shake to their very centres. 

Within this watchful line lay the Southern Con- 
federacy, rich in cotton, resin and turpentine, yet 
wanting the necessaries of life. Without were the 
swift cruisers of jealous kingdoms, striving to open 
the commerce thus suddenly closed. Valuable 
prizes within and eager cupidity from without 
threatened it. Profound statesmanship and wily 
statecraft strove to neutralize it. The bitter hatred 
caused by the humiliation of two wars, augmented 
by envy at our commercial prosperity, cherished 
the desire and even made the attempt to destroy it. 
But these efforts were all in vain. 

And now shall we hear the assertion, the blockade 
was incomplete, a tame affair, a failure t The 
blockade incomplete } Does the caviler forget 
that extraordinary confession wrung from our 



i68 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

English ' ' friends, " — aye, forced from them by 
deeds which can not He, ' ' that in no previous war 
had the ports of an enemy been so effectually 
closed by a naval force ?" The blockade a tame af- 
fair ? Witness the long list of prizes, the avails of 
which are over twelve millions of dollars, taken by 
its almost matchless skill and untiring vigilance. 
The blockade a failure ? What was it that reduced 
the Southern States to penury ; that banished the 
luxuries and rendered even the necessaries of life 
almost inaccessible ; that left whole families with- 
out food, clothing or fuel ; that destroyed their 
commerce, checked their progress, exhausted, in 
short, the resources of the Confederacy ? 

This was the work of that complete blockade, 
which has not a parallel in the annals of naval war- 
fare, — the greatest achievement of the American 
navy. 

The events of our late war have tended to make 
us a naval rather than a military power. Yet as 
we review many of its fiercest struggles we find 
these two forces, like the arms of the human 
frame, supplementary to each other. V/ondrously 
interwoven in the m.arches and countermarches of 
their campaigns, each moving harmoniously in its 
own orbit, yet pressing onward to the same great 
end. We would not distinguish between them. 
To consider one, we must regard the other. 
Envy and jealousy were swallowed up in true 
patriotism. In their unity wa^ their strength. 



EXHIBITION OF 1868, 169 

The battle of Pittsburg Landing furnishes a 
glorious illustration. All day our troops had 
fought. Charge followed charge. Line after line 
advanced e'en to the cannon's mouth, then wavered 
and broke 'neath the raking fire of the enemy. 
Now the foe advance. On, like an avalanche, 
they come. Post after post yields. Regiment after 
regiment is captured. The right wing is beaten 
back ; the left cut open ; the centre breaks, and de- 
feat seems inevitable. When, suddenly that seem- 
ingly omnipotent, victorious line halts, wavers, 
and retreats. From the right came a destructive 
fire of shot and shell, as from every gun on board 
the Tyler and Lexington rang out that terrible 
warning. All night long those fiery sentinels 
watched. And as in rapid succession those iron 
throated monsters spoke, each voice seemed the 
quick drumbeat of a retreating foe. Two great 
armies met and fought. Two great armies were 
routed, and fled, leaving only their dead and wounded 
in possession of the field, but the victory to our 
American navy. 

During those long and perilous years which tried 
and almost destroyed the nation, years in which 
the whole land was shaken, and the great heart of 
the nation throbbed till every nerve trembled with 
the shock, there was a period when the safety of all 
depended on the navy. The army was in readi- 
ness, but separated from the conflict by the waters 
12 



1 7 o THE CLA RK PRIZE BOOK. 

of the restless ocean. The navy alone stood be- 
tween the nation and her enemy. 

You all remember when Norfolk was made the 
navy yard of the Southern Confederacy ; how the 
rebels contributed from their scanty means, and the 
best workmen of the South gathered there; and all 
to build a craft that should ride invincible on the 
wave. The hull of the old Merrimac was raised 
from its watery grave, rebuilt and iron mailed, and 
the new Merrimac sailed out from the harbor, 
freighted with the dearest hopes of the South. 

How the nation quaked with fear as that '' seem- 
ingly almost omnipotent monster" met and de- 
stroyed the Minnesota, sunk the Cumberland and 
turned northward in its path of death. Frigates 
could not oppose it. Forts could not beat in its 
iron sides. Destruction seemed inevitable. Just 
at this critical moment the little ' * Yankee Cheese- 
Box " arrived at Fortress Monroe. The stormy 
night, the rushing wind and the rolling wave had 
combined to destroy it. But the hand of God, who 
rules the wind and the wave, held the helm. The 
fort was reached; nev/s of the battle heard; and the 
little craft steamed for the scene of action. As the 
stripling of Israel met the giant of Philistia, so the 
little Monitor, the monster of secession. Thrice the 
Merrimac rushed upon the Monitor to crush her 
with her iron prow. Thrice she is repelled, receiv- 
ing the third time injuries which compelled her to 



EXHIBIT. ION OF 1868. 1 7 j 

retreat. The Monitor follows, redoubling her fire, 
till that hitherto invincible ' ' death-dealing " mon- 
ster is driven back by the same way she came, 
never more to return. Ericsson was rewarded. 
The age of ironclads began. The nation was 
saved, and the praise belonged to an Almighty God 
and the navy of the United States. 

The list of worthy names and heroic deeds is 
long. Yet can the gratitude of a redeemed nation 
forget the -opening of the Mississippi, that grand 
masterpiece of naval warfare, that tore asunder the 
very vitals of the Confederacy ; when Foote and 
Davis, with extemporized ironclads, swept through 
the heart of the South, leaving the victories of Fort 
Henry, Hickman, Island No. 10 and Vicksburg to 
illumine their path } And shall we forget how the 
nation grew wild with joy when Rowan and Golds- 
borough after a series of battles not more brilliant 
than successful, reconquered the shore of North 
Carolina; or when Dupont, circling through his 
magnificent and fiery ellipse, humbled the nursery 
of secession by replanting the flag on the batteries 
of Port Royal ; or when Farragut, rushing through 
a sea of fire, silenced Fort Jackson, demolished 
Fort Phillips, annihilated the enemy's most effectual 
squadron, and reoccupied, in the name of the re- 
public, the ' ' Crescent City of the South r 

That power which in its infancy contended with 
the mistress of the seas, bravely and victoriously 



172 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



upheld the young repubHc on the wave, and made 
a more successful crusade against barbarism than 
all united Europe ; that power which in its youth 
could boast of the name and deeds of a Perry ; 
that in its manhood, by its unparalleled blockade, 
saved the nation the humiliation of having the 
standard of secession planted over three thousand 
miles of our ocean frontier ; that began the age of 
ironclads ; that opened the Tennessee, the Red, 
the Cumberland, the Mississippi, and established 
itself the ruling force on the high seas ; this power 
was and is the American navy. 

Lift aloft, then, that noble standard, which the 
brave old Porter carried at his masthead, bearing 
the motto, "Free Trade and Sailor's Rights ;" 
that inscription, synonymous with the honor of 
the navy, the freedom of the seas, the defense of 
the national commerce. Let this great and united 
nation, in its onward march, ever remember 
that ' ' in fostering our naval power we are at once 
gratifying the noblest passion of our souls — the 
love of liberty, and are giving protection to those 
institutions which are both our safeguard and our 
glory." 

The American navy portrays the bravery, pa- 
triotism and genius of the American people. From 
the Revolution till to-day it has existed, a mighty 
power. When civil war threatened the nation it 
was in the land. Necessity gave the command ; 



EXHIBITION OF 1868. 



173 



the forests of Maine, the oak ; the bowels of the 
earth, the metal ; and the brain of the nation, the 
skill. The result was the mighty ironclad, which 
has changed the science of war and made peace 
more desirable and imperative. 

Great, then, as the achievements of the Ameri- 
can navy have been, the true triumph will be a task 
of pacific statesmanship. 

As we walk through the war-worn frigates of our 
navy and see the tiers of guns, they seem to us as 
the pipes of some dread organ charged with the 
horrible dissonance of the past. As we walk 
through the aisles of a manufacturing hall and see 
the long rows of gold pens, they resemble bright 
banks of keys commanding the blessed harmonies 
of the future. The last gunboat v/ill be laid aside 
before the power of the pen ; but the last pen will 
be abandoned only when the last man disappears. 



EXHIBITION OF 1869. 

"The Relations of the United States to the Indian Tribes,' 
Charles Densmore Barrows. 

"The Progress of Liberty in England," 

Thomas Warner Fitch. 

" Reverence in the American Character," 

John Curtis Fowler. 

"The Prose and Poetry of the Sea," 

Otis Randall Glover. 

"The Achievements of American Artists," 

Simon Newton Dexter North, 
Selden Haynes Talcott. 

"The Sensational in Literature." 



REVERENCE IN THE AMERICAN CHARACTER. 



BY JOHN C. FOWLER. 



CONCEIT invites criticism. Our American fail- 
ing in this direction, has acted, with other 
causes, to render it fashionable, in some quarters 
abroad, to pick flaws in American character and 
custom, to see rather the evil than the good phases 
of our development. 

Among the accusations thus suggested, is the lack 
of reverence. Many foreign writers upon America 
claim that we have no reverence for antiquity, for 
authority in opinion, for the state, for parents, for 
God and religion, in short for anything. 



EXHIBITION OF i86g. 1 7 5 

Is there, indeed, no reverence in the American 
character ? 

Our fathers were reverent, and the pilgrims most 
of all. They revered God and His truth, nature 
and law, the holy charms of domestic life, and the 
nobility of freedom for body and soul. Have we 
lost our heritage of reverent faith t 

The objects and manifestations of reverence 
differ with character and culture. They are indica- 
tive of national as well as individual tendencies. 
Chinamen, welded to forms, controlled by an ab- 
solute and minute despotism, are outwardly rever- 
ential by habit and compulsion; inwardly, there is 
indifference. This hypocrisy of reverence indicates 
the formal superficiality of Celestial civilization. 
Greece and Rome revered, each its peculiar sym- 
bols ; but with imaginative Greek as with practical 
Roman, these were objective ; in politics, the state, 
not the people; in religion, material, not spiritual 
power. Modern Europe reveres what is traditional; 
society is framed upon the past, so society wor- 
ships the past. Feudalism was the beginning of 
advancement and power, so the people revere titles, 
rank, nobility ; that is, they express such a rever- 
ence ; its depth is doubtful. France showed little 
of it in '93. We doubt its healthy growth in Bir- 
mingham and Manchester. In religion, state and 
church are still interwoven ; the formal reverence 
due the one is granted to the other. 



176 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

Expressions are as varied as objects of reverence. 
The Chinaman reveres slavishly ; the Greek and 
Roman, the one with artistic intellect, the other 
with self-abnegation for the state ; the European 
reveres ceremonies hallowed by time, doffs the hat, 
bows the knee, is punctilious in titles. 

Now all these, we own, Americans have not. We 
do not kiss the earth in salaams; exhale our lives in 
artistic excellence; silently die, to widen the bounds 
of empire; make genuflections to titles, or do 
obeisance to the past as it absorbs the present. 
Why should we '^. Our history is not that of tradi- 
tion ; our government was not formed for us, but 
by us, the people ; we have no statics, we are all 
dynamics. How can we worship a past to which 
we owe so little ; traditions from which we have 
cut loose ; material rank and titles, acres and 
heritages to which we have proven ourselves 
superior } 

But there is a reverence, born of our national 
life, sustained by our national circumstances. 

Our history has been one of ideas, ideas crystal- 
lizing, overriding, overcoming, removing the mere- 
ly material. These ideas are freedom and truth ; 
freedom, full, large, universal, for body, thought 
and soul ; truth, not present and fragmentary, but 
all-embracing, infinite. We care little for outsides 
if they do not mean these ; and we know these ideas 
so well, that we look through forms and judge the 



EXHIBITION OF i86g. 1 7 7 

essence. So our life and our character lead us to 
revere ideas, not forms or ceremonies, or symbols, 
but substance, meaning the essential. What care 
we for officers, we who regard the office ; what for 
rulers, we who are ourselves sovereigns, carrying, 
within ourselves the ideas, the will which rules. 
Others may take for granted that things past are 
true; we are too much in earnest for truth to take 
anything for granted. We probe this past ; if there 
be truth, we honor, not the past, which merely held 
it, but the truth itself. 

Our religious reverence is of the same cast. 
Love of freedom and eagerness for truth, are every- 
where manifest, even in our mistakes. Each strives 
to work out his own salvation; churches do not do 
it for him. So we regard forms and creeds and 
churches less, and individual heart and life-piety 
more. 

This freedom and sometimes reckless eagerness 
for truth, often leads to error ; and thus, the very 
desire to revere only the genuine, appears, to some, 
lack of reverence for religion itself. Despite its 
evils, this desire and reverence for spiritual truth is 
vastly higher and more ennobling than any respect 
for mere forms ; and do we not honestly come by it.-* 
If you doubt, go back with Tacitus into dim Ger- 
manic forests, and behold our far-off ancestry wor- 
shiping divinity unembodied and unseen, while 
the less noble Roman bowed to material effigies of 
sensual imaginings. 



1 7 8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

And, truly, whatever may be the faults or ab- 
surdities of some American creeds, there is here a 
practical reverence for religion rarely found abroad. 
God's name has never become a by-word in polite 
society, like the " Mon Dieu" of the French; 
or the Sabbath, a gala day, as all over Conti- 
nental Europe. Enter any village of our state 
upon a Sabbath morning, and as you hear the 
church bells, amid hushed stillness all around, call- 
ing to worship, you will feel that we revere God's 
day ; enter the unpretending church and you will 
feel that we revere God. 

In narrower spheres of life the same conclusions 
hold. Too many young Americans, indeed, in appear- 
ance, show want of respect for age, and neglect of 
domestic ties. Yet do we not so judge wrongly 
sometimes, because we have fixed upon certain 
modes as the only modes of reverential expression } 
And do we not often mistake a repugnance for 
shams, for disrespect } Is there a land where hon- 
est gray hairs receive more tokens of practical re- 
gard 'i Do they not, on all our thoroughfares and 
marts, receive due meed of consideration, not ex- 
torted by custom, but granted from the heart } 
While there is here little of that clinging attach- 
ment to place, which is found in older countries ; 
there exists a deep love for the affections and asso- 
ciations and comforts, which are the essence of 
home. Sometimes, indeed, father and mother are 



EXHIBITION OF i86g. 179 

rudely shoved aside, without honor of thought or 
word ; there is this danger in the free, independ- 
ent culture of our youth, self-poised, self-reliant. 
But great as is the evil, it is too often magnified. 
Here, as elsewhere, in times of sorrow and need, 
parents find strong arms to lean upon, and loving 
hearts to comfort them ; and as many homes here, 
as elsewhere, are reared by filial hands, to cover the 
heads of aged loved ones. 

As between man and man, it is said, we pay no 
respect to persons. It may be so. But we honor 
labor and worth ; we honor the golden speech of 
the orator ; the modest learning of the true philos- 
opher ; the wise words of the pious preacher ; the 
unassuming strength of tried and tested virtue ; 
we honor true bravery, skill, endurance, foresight ; 
we honor all these, and pay our homage with a 
heartiness which proves it genuine. La Fayette, 
returning to view the scenes of his early pilgrimage 
for freedom ; Dickens, the representative of that 
English literature in which we claim lot and share; 
Kossuth, the leader of a brave people crushed in a 
desperate struggle for liberty ; all these, surely our 
nation honored. Our own gifted and great, while 
we do not accept their thoughts as our thoughts ; 
yet we honor them and their memories. Washing- 
ton and his compeers of the Revolution are as truly 
revered as if in marble piles ; Henry Clay is yet 
well-nigh worshiped by Kentuckians ; New Eng- 



i8o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

land flushes with pride of Webster ; and but four 
years since, a nation in tears, city and village and 
hamlet and farm, offered reverence, as the bier of 
Lincoln passed, from the banks of the Potomac, to 
the prairies of Illinois. 

Yet we build few monuments. But we name our 
towns and children and lyceums and mountains, 
after our great men. Only here and there a col- 
umn rises, half complete, perhaps, to tell posterity 
their fame. Yet it is not the reverence which is 
lacking, but those forms of expression to which older 
civilizations have given rise. The business of our 
national, as of our individual life, has been too 
much a struggle. We have too lately made firm our 
revered idea of universal brotherhood in universal 
freedom, for us to play very much with the elegant 
arts. But will they not all come in good time ; and 
then, will not the American reverence for ideas, lift 
our American art into higher spirituality and nobler 
beauty, than the world has known 1 

Sincerity in essence, simplicity of expression, are 
the prominent characteristics of American rever- 
ence. It is our very sincerity which utterly refuses 
to be trammeled by mere forms. We will not wor- 
ship shams. In our search for truth, we are so 
eager that we take strange paths, may be, but most 
of us right ourselves, by and by. Many as our hum- 
bugs are, they rarely live long. European and Orien- 
tal humbugs live forever. We adopt our creeds, 



EXHIBITION OF i86g. i8i 

not for form's, but for truth's sake. We may have 
many strange behefs ; we have comparatively few 
merely formal believers. 

This sincerity never courts expression ; true worth 
is unobtrusive. We do not vaunt our reverence, 
but rather conceal it until occasion demands ; and 
then, it is too real for trappings. 

The ideas we revere need no fanciful adornments ; 
the men we honor are their own best monuments ; 
the homes we cherish have faithful memorials in 
our hearts ; the God we worship, and the religion 
we profess, are too sacred for aught but simple 
earnestness. 

The effects of this reverence are plain in our 
national life. Some of them seem evil. Forms 
are of value ; they contain substance, and, some- 
times, breaking the form destroys the substance. 
So young America gets to be rude and wicked ; 
middle-aged America becomes opinionated and 
crabbed ; so religion slips away from God's moor- 
ings and becomes ' ' ism ; " so search for truth 
becomes scepticism. But these evils are outward 
and occasional ; are they not also temporary } 

There are good influences of this reverence, 
which are essential, general, permanent. The 
power of public opinion is one. Nowhere else 
has it so tremendous a weight. This, inspired 
by our reverence for ideas, fought our Civil 
War ; politicians could not cajole, failure did 
not dishearten it ; to-day, it demands the full 



i82 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

fruits of its victory. Our regard for law is another 
token and result of our reverence. Our law has 
little paraphernalia, periwigs and maces, and 
but few myrmidons ; but break it, and see how its 
arms reach over the continent. The position of 
woman, the diffusion of knowledge, the wonders of 
our inventive skill, are all, both signs and outgrowth 
of our reverence for ideas. But grandest result of 
all, this reverence will mould the coming American 
mind. Our search after truth in perfection, with 
our glorious idea of freedom, is working out a grand 
composite character, bold, free, persistive, impress- 
ible, and with wonderful power of adaptation. 
This power of adaptation springs directly from our 
reverence for ideas, and consequent freedom from 
form. What matters the garb, when we revere 
the heart ; what the name, when we seek the 
essence.^ 

We conclude then, that granting the formal alle- 
gations of our critics, and regretting the truth of 
many of their statements ; we, yet, cannot plead 
guilty to utter lack of reverence in our American 
character. 

There is not, indeed, reverence for those objects 
which the vrorld has mainly revered, or those forms 
of expression sanctioned b}' centuries of use ; but 
there is a deep, earnest reverence for the .great ideas 
which mould our history and life ; for God and re- 
ligion; for worth of mind and heart; for pure affec- 



EXHIBITION OF i86g. 183 

tion and its abiding home. There is not form or 
ceremony, there is simple, sincere earnestness ; 
and, withal, we claim that this, our American rever- 
ence, grasping thoughts, rather than things, is 
noblest of all, as closest to that "which is unseen 
and eternal." 



EXHIBITION OF 1870. 

" The Character and Causes of the Influence of New Eng- 
land in the United States," 

Charles Elmer Allison, 

Sheldon William Swaney. 
"The Greatness and Littleness of Eminent Men," 

William Henry DeShon. 
"The Effect of a Belief in an Endless Life upon Education," 

Henry Allyn Frink. 
"The Heroism of the Naturalist," 

James Hart Hoadley. 
"Chinese and American Civilization," 

Frederick Augustus Sackett. 
"The Conservative Influence of the Legal Profession." 



THE HEROISM OF THE NATURALIST. 



BY JAMES H. hoadley. 



WHO that has read Prescott's ' ' Conquest of 
Mexico," has not exclaimed as he finished 
the story, '* heroic?" It has been generally allowed 
that the man who subjugated an empire which had 
lasted for three centuries, with a handful of Castil- 
ian soldiers, was a hero. If now we analyze the 
heroism of Hernando Cortez, we find underlying it 
a sublime faith. He believed in the success of his 
undertaking, and so he burns his ships, and turns 
from the ocean behind to the untried enemy before 



EXHIBITION OF 1870. 185 

him. Courage and persistency are the marked 
characteristics of that march to the capital : a 
courage that humbled the hitherto impregnable 
Republic of Tlascala ; routed the combined armies 
in the plain of Otumba ; and captured the king in 
his own palace : a persistency that was undaunted 
by the treachery of the natives ; the mutiny of his 
own soldiers ; and the hostility of Charles V. 
Such is the heroism of the soldier ; a type most 
prominent in history, and most honored by the 
world. 

Apply this to the naturalist. Has he the faith, 
the courage and the persistency that makes the 
hero of the battle-field } 

Let example answer example. Is not Alexander 
Humboldt penetrating the undiscovered regions of 
the Amazon and Orinoco, pressing his way through 
dense and unknown forests, and climbing the rug- 
ged mxountain peaks of the Andes, led by a heroic 
faith .? He believed in a cosmos, and his faith 
will not let him rest until it has unfolded the mys- 
teries of that cosmos. If courage and persistency 
are the tests, who will not say that the life of John 
James Audubon was heroic } History does not 
afford a nobler example of sublime courage and 
untiring energy. *' For more than sixty years," we 
are told, *'he followed with a religious devotion, 
a beautiful and elevated pursuit. In all climes, and 
in all weathers ; scorched by burning suns ; drenched 
13 



1 86 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

by piercing rains ; frozen by the fiercest colds ; in 
perils, in difficulties and in doubts, he faithfully 
kept on his path." Like the hero of Italy, he had 
"rather take one step forward and die, than one 
step backward and live." 

The naturalist may indeed claim the homage due 
those qualities which go to make the heroic soldier ; 
but there is a higher type of heroism. Patience 
and self-sacrifice are indispensable to the true hero. 
Thirst for power has been the motor of most battle- 
fields ; and pride, impatience and selfishness, have 
characterized most conquerors. A truer heroism 
labors not for itself, but others ; it does not seek 
applause ; it is content to wait with patience for its 
exaltation and reward. The child who carried 
draughts of water to the wounded and dying at 
Inkerman, showed a nobler heroism than the chief- 
tain who w'on the Crimea. So the devotion of the 
humble missionary, leaving the house of his love to 
tell the story of the cross beyond the sea, and 
laboring for years perhaps, in patience, amid dis- 
couragement and suffering, before one indication of 
success appears, is a type of heroism to which mere 
physical courage can never attain. And here again, 
the naturalist has fairly earned the title of hero. 

In geology, botany, zoology, in every department 
of natural science, great names crowd upon us. 
Names of those who have sacrificed position, 
wealth, friends, comfort and even life itself with 



EXHIBITION OF rSjo. 187 

unparalleled devotion. Names of those who 
patiently endured hunger, thirst, heat, cold, disap- 
pointment, opposition, weariness, sickness, peril, 
privation of every kind, undismayed by delay and 
undaunted by defeat. What sought these men for 
themselves t Honor } They had left it ! Fame } 
They had renounced it ! Wealth } They had 
despised it ! 

Honor came indeed to some. A few great names 
won the admiration of the world. Men wrote their 
lives ; and nations, proud of the record, preserved 
their memory in song and chronicle and marble. 
But, alas ! the greater number died unknown. 
Many never came back from their adventurous wan- 
derings ; and some returned enfeebled and crippled 
to die in their native land. Ye are at rest, O hero- 
martyrs in the cause of science! Sleep on in your 
unknown homes, with icebergs for your monuments, 
with the soft seaweed for your pillows, with desert 
sands for your covering. Your names we have 
never heard ; but we shall see you in that vast 
assembly where every man's vv^ork shall be revealed. 

We have seen that the naturalist possesses all the 
elements of the heroic spirit. He enters on his 
mission with a sublime faith in the object of his 
pursuit. In courage and persistiveness he is not 
surpassed by the soldier. While by patience and 
self-sacrifice he establishes his claim to heroism 
in its nobler form. But we can not assign the 



1 88 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

naturalist his place among the heroes, without con- 
sidering the character, the difficulties and the 
results of his work. 

The sphere in which the naturalist labors, is the 
sphere of mind. True, there is much that is phys- 
ical in it. He breaks the rocks ; he examines the 
flowers ; he collects the shells ; but these are only 
means to an end ; they are the materials upon 
which he builds a mental structure. 

As when a child, gathering in its lap the colored 
blocks its father gave it, learns to put the bits of 
wood together and spell out the words ; so the 
naturalist brings into his workshop his alphabet 
blocks, stones, minerals and shells, plants, insects 
and animals. The letters are many shaped. Each 
kingdom speaks a dialect. Yet the language of 
nature is one and harmonious. To ascertain that 
harmony, to read that language, is his work. 

No mean labor this ; it requires intellect of the 
highest order. Profound investigation, thorough 
analysis, and careful and correct synthesis, are 
necessary to solve the problem. But the men who 
undertook it were worthy of their task. With the 
same heroic devotion with which they ransacked 
the globe for data, they classified and systematized 
their discoveries. 

Day after day Hugh Miller labored on with un- 
tiring zeal in the completion of his ' ' Testimony of 
the Rocks. " Hours after midnight, the light glim- 



EXHIBITION OF 1870. 189 

mered through the windows of his study, which 
within the same month was to witness the close of 
the volumes, and the close of the author's life. 

We have spoken of Humboldt's faith in nature, 
and the ardor with which he entered her service. 
Let us again recall him. He is no longer a young 
enthusiast. Eighty years have silvered his hair, 
and wasted his strength ; but the heroism of the old 
man surpasses that of the boy. Already his pub- 
lished works are a library in themselves ; but still 
behold him, with unwearied energy, devoting his 
declining days to the completion of that ' ' Cosmos " 
which is to stand in the first rank of literature. 

Animated by the same indefatigable spirit, Cuvier 
wrought out his system of classifying animals and 
plants. And to-day our own Agassiz, '' upon whom 
the mantle of Cuvier seems to have fallen," is de- 
veloping and unfolding the system still further, with 
an intellectual acumen which has challenged the 
prizes of two continents. 

The heroism of the naturalist, however, appears 
not only in the character of his work, but in the 
peculiar difficulties with which he contends. These 
arise partly from his isolated condition, and partly 
from the nature of the natural sciences. 

It is true, as almost every writer has remarked, 
that '* man is a social being." It is also true, that 
he is largely indebted for heroic action to the pres- 
ence and encouragement of his fellow man. He is 



1 90 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

indeed, to a certain extent, the creature of circum- 
stances, for a sublime occasion has made heroes of 
the veriest cowards. Now, it must be admitted, 
that he who is independent of men and circum- 
stances ; who does not fail for, but makes occasions ; 
in short, who carries his inspiration in his own soul, 
is the greatest hero. And this is precisely the dif- 
ference between the soldier and the naturalist. 

Marshal Ney, leading the charge at Waterloo ; 
under the eye of the emperor ; in front of two 
armies ; with the gaze of all Europe turned toward 
that scene, exhibits heroism of a very different type 
from that of Dr. Livingstone meeting the wild beasts 
in the solitude of an African forest. 

The soldier is inspired by the array of armies ; 
the glitter of weapons ; the roar of cannon ; the 
strains of martial music, and all ' ' the pomp and 
circumstance of war." Not so with the naturalist. 
He goes forth alone to win his battles ; alone he 
encounters danger ; alone he penetrates the arcana 
of nature ; alone he works out through weary hours 
the plan of the universe. Difficulties arising from 
the very nature of the natural sciences, baffle the 
student at almost every step. 

Natural science rests upon investigation, testi- 
mony and experience ; but these are not invariable. 
Investigation has not been completed. Testimony 
does not always agree. Experience varies. And 
so previous generalizations are sometimes contra- 



EXHIBITION OF 1876, 1 9 1 

dieted ; old systems invalidated, and new classifi- 
cations demanded. But the naturalist, undaunted 
by defeat in one direction, strikes another path. 
He reexamines, remodels — perchance reconstructs 
from the beginning. Perplexity does not dis- 
hearten ; contradiction does not silence ; failure 
does not intimidate. Failure } He never fails. 
The heroism that ever returns with fresh courage to 
the contest, out of failure achieves success and 
turns defeat to victory. 

But "by their fruits shall ye know them," is the 
test to which men and systems are to be subjected. 
Though the naturalist exhibits all courage and en- 
durance ; though he push his labors into the high- 
est realms of thought ; though he conquer single 
handed the greatest difficulties ; aye, though he 
sacrifice life itself a willing offering ; yet if he leaves 
no lasting good to benefit mankind, he deserves not 
in the true sense of the term the epithet of " hero." 
That is heroism, and that alone, which bears and 
suffers for the advantage of others. He is a hero, 
and only he, who falls in the cause of truth. 

But the naturalist shrinks not from the trial ; for 
it is in the light of this test that his heroism turns 
into immortal glory. We have said he is the in- 
terpreter of a language — the unfolder of a plan. 
That language is a communication from above ; 
that plan is a divine arrangement. Fired with a 
nobler ambition than that of him who said, ' ' I 



192 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



paint for immortality ;" he portrays upon the can- 
vas of the human mind, which is itself immortal, 
not his own colors, but the truths of a self-existent 
and eternal Master. 

To prove from the testimony of the universe, 
the existence and personality of the Supreme ; to 
exhibit His character and attributes ; to show the 
wisdom and goodness of His government — this is 
the work of the naturalist — this the fruit of his 
heroism. Compare it with the grandest achieve- 
ments of man. Who will listen in the ages to 
come, to a recital of Caesar's campaigns 1 There 
may come a time in the dim future when the plays 
of Shakspeare, and all the brilliant achievements 
of genius in the past, will be forgotten. But the 
work of the naturalist will remain. Those prob- 
lems which he has already solved, and those upon 
which he is still heroically toiling, will have a fresh- 
ness and an interest throughout eternity ; for the 
contemplation of God in His creation and govern- 
ment will be forever our employ. 



EXHIBITION OF 1871. 

"wSir William Hamilton and His Contributions to Philos- 
ophy," 

Robert Lucky Bachman. 
"The Capture of Constantinople by the Turks," 

Elbert Wilmot Cummins, 

Charles Judson Palmer. 
" Fiction as a Means of Inculcating Religious Truth," 

John Edward Frost. 
"The Nature of Shakspeare's Dramatic Superiority," 

Albert Cossit Phillips. 
"The Career of Napoleon III.," 

Charles Luke Stone. 
"The Future of Romanism." 



SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO PHILOSOPHY, 



BY ROBERT L. BACHMAN. 



IN the Senate Hall of the Edinburgh University 
there is a new, well-chiselled bust. The face 
is strong, sober, thoughtful. The eyes are large, 
with heavy, massive brows. The head is of finest 
Grecian mould, noble looking, classical. It is the 
true, marble likeness of Sir William Hamilton. 

Born on the eve of great political events, edu- 
cated when the Jacobin's cry of *'No God, no im- 
mortality" had just ceased its reign of terror be- 



194 T^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

yond the Channel ; ushered into manhood when 
Napoleon I. made Europe tremble with the tread 
of armies, he nobly espoused the highest interests 
of humanity. For it he acted a hero's part, not on 
the field of battle, but in the solitude of the closet. 
There he was a devotee, not to ambition, but to 
learning ; a master, not of armies, but of thoughts. 

Forty years the world has known him, wondered 
at his erudition, acknowledged his gigantic intellect 
and judged of its achievements. But it has known 
him only in his intellectual greatness and his intel- 
lectual coldness. 

A traveler, passing over the Cumberland moun- 
tains, saw the battle-renowned Lookout, towering 
grand, lofty, but grim against the sky. It was 
bordered round with frowning, God-built battle- 
ments. Its sides were steep, rugged, forbidding. 
Approaching it, he found it was not all as in the 
distance seemed. From beneath its mossy cliffs, 
from among its tangled brakes, and along its deep 
ravines, pure springs and streams flowed, beautiful, 
musical, life-giving. Its summit, lofty and cloud- 
capped, was crowned with nature's own garlands ; 
the very home of beauty, love and learning. 

So, passing in review the many scholars and 
philosophers of modern times, we see Sir William 
Hamilton, the intellectual giant, towering far above 
them all. In the distance, he appears as the ab- 
stract thinker, merciless critic, disgusting egotist 



EXHIBITION OF 1871. 195 

and dangerous opponent. But when we approach 
and become more intimate with him, a glorious 
transformation takes place. What was cold and 
repulsive, becomes warm and attractive. What 
was angular and affected, rounds off into beauty and 
sincerity. Fear changes to admiration, respect to 
love. The great philosopher becomes the good 
man. 

His social, private and public life exhibit the no- 
bility of his character, the true virtues of his heart 
and the grand simplicity of his nature. 

In society he was the modest, retiring gentleman, 
more a listener than a talker. But when the sub- 
ject and occasion demanded, he manifested such 
enthusiasm, judgment, learning and conversational 
power as to at once rank him the ' ' Great Lion " of 
the literary circle. 

Discussion was his delight. In it he was a very 
*'Anak," so skillfully arranging arguments and so 
strongly supporting them by authority, as to be 
almost invincible. With all his polemical power, 
he rarely descended to the vindictive, the personal. 
He fought error and ignorance, not men. 

His friends never felt the greatness of his mind, 
but they both knew and felt the goodness of his 
heart. The inexperienced students of Glasgow and 
the learned book-searchers in the old Advocate's 
library, alike experienced his aid and kindness. 
The love and admiration he won from his numerous 



196 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

associates, was only second to that of his bosom 
friends of Oxford days, Alexander Scott and John 
Lockhart. 

Possessed of such a generous disposition, so 
seemingly unconscious of his own superiority and 
so willing to assist those in distress, he may justly 
be called the ''golden-hearted man." 

Great as was his attachment to society, it could 
not usurp his love for home. To him it was the 
dearest of earthly abodes, the repository of his 
greatest joys. Nor was he thought of there as the 
untiring student, learned scholar, or profound rea- 
soner, but only as the kind husband and loving 
father. He discussed domestic questions with as 
much zeal and earnestness as the greatest philo- 
sophical problems. And whether searching the 
records of the past, or refuting theories of the 
present, he ever found time to write his beloved 
soldier boy, and say a hearty '' God bless you." 

His public life was one of singular purity. It 
was always characterized by faithfulness, honesty 
of purpose, and devotion to dut}^ And while 
nobleness and conscientiousness of soul lifted him 
far above petty ambitions, he possessed an earnest 
desire to bless the world by being one of its leaders 
in learning and thought. Energy and persever- 
ance brought gratification to this desire, when the 
fame of his achievements came sounding, not only 
from the mountains of Scotland, but from the two 
hemispheres of the world. 



EXHIBITION OF 187 1. 1 9 7 

Years brought to him honors and sorrows 
strangely blended, but detracted nothing from his 
great life aim. Neither pecuniary distress, nor the 
paralytic stroke that shattered his powerful body, 
could break his manly spirit, or weaken his noble 
nature. 

* ' Time, which matures the intellectual part, 
Had tinged the hairs with gray, but left untouched the heart. " 

The man seems truly great, when we consider 
that in all his grappling with profound, metaphysi- 
cal problems and in all the sober, candid conclusions 
to which he came, his Christian faith wavered not. 
While many philosophers were dashed on the 
dangerous rocks of scepticism and pantheism, he 
securely anchored to the ' ' Rock of Ages. " 

To understand what Sir William Hamilton con- 
tributed to philosophy, it is necessary to briefly 
notice its history and condition before his time. 

The religious convulsion that began in the six- 
teenth century, not only shook the death grip of 
popery from the church, but released the humun 
mind from its long bondage, and bade it go, do ser- 
vice in the field of speculation. Willingly did it 
obey ; and at once arraigned before a bar of severest 
criticism all theological and scientific authority; 
boldly cast down Aristotle, worshiped for tv/o 
thousand years; and made nature and the Bible, 
companion, universal text-books. 

This ushered in the age of Francis Bacon, the 



1 98 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

father of inductive philosophy. His method, 
fruitful of good results in the study of matter, was 
first applied to the study of mind by Thomas 
Hobbes, and soon plunged him into the maelstrom 
of materalism and fatalism. 

Then came the good and great John Locke, the 
most illustrious sensationist, marking one of the 
greatest eras in English philosophy. 

Following him, was a reformer in Bishop Berkeley, 
the chief of idealists. He saw nothing but God 
and truth as beautiful, unchanging, never-dying. 

After him sprang into being the philosophical and 
religious scepticism of David Hume ; the one to be 
applauded, the other deplored. One aroused men 
from their lethargy, exposed fatal errors and 
brought forward new problems. The other con- 
fused his great mind, shattered all his beliefs and 
left his soul drifting, without the anchor of hope, 
on the restless ocean of doubt. 

Orthodox, metaphysical Scotland could not long 
brook such philosophy. The foundations of truth 
were shaken, reason dethroned and speculation 
paralyzed. There must be a change. And soon it 
came in the genius and originality of Thomas Reid, 
followed by the grace and eloquence of Dugald 
Stewart. One bold stroke of immediate percep- 
tion and the scepticism of Hume was annihilated. 

Descartes, contemporary with Bacon, gave to the 
Continent deductive philosophy, in his ''Cogito, 



EXHIBITION OF 1871. 199 

ergo sum," and hypothesis of "Occasional Causes." 
This became complete pantheism in the hands of 
Benedict Spinoza. But when the independent 
Leibnitz, with his theory of preestablished harmony 
appeared, Spinoza's pantheism vanished. The 
eighteenth century closed with the philosophy of 
Kant ; and the nineteenth began with his gifted 
follower and disciple, Fichte. Then came the lofty 
idealism of Schelling and Hegel ; and ' ' to German 
metaphysicians nothing seemed left but the empire 
of the air." But had philosophy reached its con- 
summation } Must speculation cease } " No," said 
Cousin. And with a master's skill, he grouped his 
powerful theory of eclecticism, boldly transcended 
himself, explored the region of the absolute, and 
saw God in thought and consciousness. 

Thus for more than two hundred years, the battle- 
field of speculation had resounded with the clash of 
profoundest philosophical opinions. Here material- 
ism conquers ; there idealism. Now is heard the 
shout of scepticism, then the cry of realism. At 
last the field is won, and the world subject to the 
absolute. 

The lull of peace had scarcely come, when a new 
philosopher appeared, bearing a banner with this 
strange device, "All human thought is condi- 
tioned." The world was astounded and again rang 
with conflict, as he boldly attacked the absolute, 
and denied its supporter the power to transcend 



200 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

himself and see God in purity and essence. "To 
think, " said he ''is to condition." " As the grey- 
hound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor the eagle 
outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats and by 
which he is supported, so the mind cannot transcend 
that sphere of limitation within and through which 
exclusively the possibility of thought is realized." 
By great learning, power of argument and incisive 
criticism, he hewed down the bridge spanning the 
gulf between ontology and psychology ; left the 
absolute on the hither side ; and made pantheism 
impossible. Devout and sincere, shut up between 
two inconceivables, seeing everywhere nothing but 
mystery and mental incapacity, he yielded to a sub- 
lime Christian faith and believed what he could not 
know. He said we can know God in part only, not 
as absolute, and that this partial knowledge is suffi- 
cient for our present state of existence. He con- 
sidered his doctrine of the conditioned compatible 
with the purest theology and promotive of the 
greatest good. While this admits of doubt, we are 
compelled to acknowledge its unequaled power, its 
mighty influence on modern thought, and its 
appearance as marking one of the most memorable 
eras in the history of philosophy. So profound 
was it that Cousin declared, not fifty men in Eng- 
land were competent to understand it. 

Following this contribution, came his article on 
perception. Already had he proclaimed his nega- 



EXHIBIT ION OF 1871. 201 

live philosophy, the Hmitation of thought. Now 
came his positive philosophy, the relativity of knowl- 
edge. By the one, he attacked Cousin and pan- 
theism ; by the other Brown and idealism. 

He so completely appropria,ted and thoroughly 
developed Reid's obscure philosophy, as to give it a 
meaning, force and character never before possessed. 
He assumed consciousness as the basis of all men- 
tal phenomena ; established its duality ; defined 
the facts to which it would testify ; and declared 
that only on its authority must we believe or dis- 
believe. 

By this scholarly analysis, he opened up a broad 
road between the internal and external world ; 
brought philosophy and common sense to a level ; 
banished idealism ; did service to religion by firmly 
establishing primary beliefs ; made the Scottish 
school world renowned, and himself the most illus- 
trious realist in history. 

Then came his masterpiece on logic ; and Dr. 
Whately seemed a child in the grasp of a giant. 
He reformed the science, distinguished it from all 
others and placed it on firm, abiding principles. 

These three contributions supplied a great want 
in the thinking world, and stand enduring monu- 
ments to their authors genius, learning and in- 
tegrity. 

But Sir William Hamilton's greatest contribution 
to mental science was made in the year 1836, when, 
14 



202 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

as professor in the Edinburgh University he gave 
himself to philosophy. Then, for twenty years, he 
impressed, inspired and moulded the minds of his 
hearers ; opened up to them new fields of thought ; 
swept away old errors ; enthroned new truths ; and 
reformed the metaphysics of Scotland. 

For the first time ancient and modern philosophy 
found a true exponent. Bacon and Descartes had 
disdained all authority, banished their predecessors 
and given their own thoughts to the world. Locke, 
Reid, Stewart and Brown were woefully deficient 
in history and taught their followers to despise the 
research of all past philosophers. It was for Sir 
William Hamilton to bring the thinkers of the 
"long ago," not into authority, but into knowl- 
edge ; to link the past with the present ; and save 
from oblivion most valuable information. 

Like the heroic Livingstone, plunging into the 
forests and jungles of Africa in search of the Nile's 
beginning, he went far beyond the sight of men 
among the volumes of the fathers and schoolmen ; 
explored the fields of medicine, jurisprudence and 
physical science ; traversed the most intricate laby- 
rinths of forgotten logic ; and climbed the most 
difficult heights of speculation, all in quest of truth 
and knowledge. 

To know that he thus became possessed of 
choicest philosophical facts and opinions, that he 
could survey the whole world of literature with as 



EXHIBITION OF 1871. - 203 

much ease and exactness as our gifted Peters sweeps 
the starry heavens in search of Ate and Iphigenia, 
we may well regret that he did not give a contri- 
bution in the history of philosophy. But this 
regret pales to insignificance, when we remember 
the historic spirit he awakened, the method of in- 
quiry he instituted, the impetus he gave to modern 
thought ; how he bound together the speculations 
of Greece, England, Germany and France ; and 
set the seal of a master's hand on the forming phil- 
osophy of youthful, practical America. 

Whoever would know what is good, great and 
ennobling in man, whoever would search after truth 
and understand mental science, must study and 
understand the life and philosophy of Sir William 
Hamilton. 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 

" Marcus TtiUius Cicero," 

John Hampton Hopkins. 
"The Teutonic and Gallic Characters as Illustrated by Their 
History," 

Arthur Stephen Hoyt. 
"The Use of the Imagination in Science," 

George Frederick Lyon. 
"Commerce: Its Growth and Influence," 

Brainard Gardner Smith. 
"The Influence of Dramatic Poetry," 

Melancthon Wooi.sey Stryker. 
"Jewish Civilization in the Age of Solomon," 

Jacob Franklyn Tufts. 



COMMERCE: ITS GROWTH AND INFLUENCE. 



BY BRAINARD G. SMITH. 



IN all Greek literature there is no legend more 
celebrated, none more fruitful as a theme for 
speculation or poesy than that of the Argonautic 
expedition. 

Leaving vine-clad Thessaly and their native 
lands, yielding not to Lemnian blandishments, 
neither terrified by giants and harpies, nor dis- 
heartened by adverse winds and tempestuous waves, 
the heroes of the Argo passed the Cyanean rocks, 
sailed over an unknown sea, accomplished stupen- 
dous labors, and secured the Qolden Fleece. 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 205 

Embodied in this myth we see a desire that has 
ever actuated men, born with the race, common to 
all people, influencing all nations ; the desire to 
accumulate wealth. Controlled by the religion, 
the government, the situation, or the genius of a 
people, it has assumed various forms among differ- 
ent nations. Its earliest and most common form, 
when men were rude, was plunder and piracy. 
The acquisition of property taught its value ; then 
came laws in defence of its rights, and plunder 
became trade, piracy commerce. 

It is our province to consider the growth and 
influence of commerce. 

A desire for the wealth of the East, the silks of 
China, the jewels of India, the spices of Arabia — 
luxuries, not necessities — first gave an impulse to 
commerce. And so, through the straits of Ormus, 
through the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates, across 
Chaldea's plains rolled the tide of trade. It 
enriched Babylon, made Palmyra a queenly city in 
a dreary desert, and poured its treasures into Syrian 
and Tyrian coffers. 

*' Situated at the entry of the sea," Tyre grasped 
this commerce and became ' ' a merchant for the 
people of many isles." Phoenician galleys brought 
the gold of Ophir, the silver and ivory of Tar- 
shish to Solomon ; and Phoenician navigators con- 
ducted Necho's triremes around the coast of Africa. 
Creeping along the shores, or guided by the stars. 



2o6 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

these fearless sailors carried Phoenician commerce 
westward, and founded Carthage ; thence into 
Spain, rich in silver and corn and wine ; then pass- 
ing the gates of Gades, sailed northward to the 
Baltic. 

By the Macedonian conquests and the destruc- 
tion of Tyre, the channel of commerce was turned 
from the Persian to the Arabian Gulf ; from Asia 
into Africa. Through Alexandria passed the treas- 
ures of the East, and Carthage was for ages the 
great commercial seaport of the world. 

Rome despised commerce. She was a nation of 
soldiers. But when her legions had conquered the 
world, when Greece and Egypt and Carthage were 
her provinces, she then protected the industry she 
scorned, and commerce flourished. Yet Rome fell. 
Attila and Alaric with their barbaric hordes, swept 
down upon the imperial city, and the light of civili- 
zation was extinguished. Nations united by Roman 
power were divided ; the lawless exactions of the 
feudal system precluded all trade, and pirates 
drove commerce from the seas. 

But armies cannot conquer, oppression cannot 
destroy the spirit of commerce. It may, indeed, be 
crushed, but it will rise again, and with renewed 
vigor assert its supremacy. The Italians were now 
the first to feel this power. Taking advantage of 
the peace that attended the reign of Charlemagne, 
they effected and maintained a commercial inter- 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 2 o 7 

course with Constantinople, with the seaports of 
Syria, and with Alexandria, and European commerce 
was firmly established. 

It remained, however, for the Crusades to give to 
it its grand impulse. By uniting men in one great 
cause, by leading multitudes from every corner of 
Europe, they opened a way for Lombard merchants 
to introduce among the nations of the north, not 
only the rich productions of Italian labor and skill, 
but, what were more valuable, Italian ideas. 

And now we see commerce advancing with rapid 
pace ; extending its influence in ever widening 
circles. Holland becomes the naval depot of 
Europe. A new spirit of industry is excited in the 
Netherlands, and Flanders grows opulent through 
her trade in woolens. Across the waters England 
sees these vast results. Under the wise guidance 
of Edward III. she formiS a confederacy with the 
continental states, and aided by Flemish artisans 
introduces manufactories. Encouraged alike by 
the wisdom, the avarice and the vanity of English 
rulers, the spirit of commerce becomes the control- 
ling spirit of England. 

In the fifteenth century the practical application 
of the magnetic needle causes a revolution in the 
commercial world. Portugal and Spain enter the 
field and demand a share in the spoils of the East. 
To the south sails Vasco da Gama, rounds the 
southern extremity of Africa, takes good hope that 



2o8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

he shall reach India, and thus turns the course of 
commerce from the Red Sea and the Mediterranean 
to the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. Westward 
sails Columbus and a new world reveals its treasures 
to wondering Europe. Spain, Holland and Eng- 
land rush to secure the prize, and the spirit of 
commerce is abroad in America. 

Henceforward we see commerce become almost 
universal ; in Spain rise to grandeur till crushed 
by the tyranny of Philip III ; in Holland sweep 
the seas ; in England rule the main, subsidize 
Europe, colonize all continents ; and in our own 
land grow with wonderful rapidity. It extends all 
along our seaboard, through our chain of lakes, 
down our rapid rivers ; piercing mountains, crossing 
prairies, ever growing, ever extending, until the 
stars and stripes float from American merchantmen 
in every port, on every sea. 

Such the growth of commerce. It now remains 
to ascertain its influence. 

Commerce is civilizing. Its very germ is an 
acknowledgment of a diversity of powers in nature 
and men. The recognition of an interlocking of 
human interests, whereby, no one being complete, 
each one furnishes to the other. Thus it has 
founded and blessed a thousand cities by the sound- 
ing sea ; has stretched the solid pomp of dock and 
warehouse and mast along a hundred riversides ; 
has guided a myriad caravans to green oases, there 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 209 

to rear abodes of luxurious culture. It has roused 
to useful industry energies else spent in war, or 
chase, or loitering idleness. Creating cravings 
for conveniences, for culture, and for luxuries, it has 
put in operation countless agencies to sate them ; 
fostering and encouraging invention and skill, bear- 
ing arts and sciences everywhere. Quickening 
minds, brightening brains, it effects what the love 
of knowledge suggests. Dispelling prejudices, 
appeasing animosities, refining and elevating, it is 
the Gulf Stream of civilization ; doing for progres- 
sive humanity what this mighty current does for 
the ocean world. 

The history of Italy verifies these assertions. 
Through the gloom of the dark ages she appears 
to us dismembered, torn by dissensions and petty 
wars among her bandit barons. ' ' Every man's 
hand is against his neighbor." Laws unknown, 
useful arts neglected, luxuries despised, she lies 
steeped in ignorance and brutality, a plague-spot 
upon the fairest portion of Europe. What power 
potent for her cure } Northward the spirit of com- 
merce is advancing. It reaches Italy ; she feels its 
heathful influence, rouses from her lethargy and 
moves on in a new career of honor and glory. 
Dismembered states are reunited, wars cease, manu- 
factures and the arts flourish, literature revives, law 
and order prevail. Milan and Pisa and Genoa are 



2 1 o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

regal in power and splendor, and Venice becomes 

"A ruler of the waters and their powers. 
The exhaustless East 
Pours in her lap all gems in sparkling showers ; 
In purple is she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partake, and deem their dignity increased." 

Commerce fosters the spirit of liberty and equal- 
ity ; has ever been the companion and champion 
of freedom. By its influence were swept away the 
false distinctions, the oppression and savage slavery 
of the feudal system. Surrounded by plundering 
nobles and stupid serfs, from the marshes of Holland 
rose the free cities of the Hauseatic League, 
''whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers 
the honorable of the earth." 

Hamburg and Lubeck and their sister cities 
demonstrated to the world that free confederacies, 
the result of intelligent cooperation, ruled by mer- 
chants and defended by artisans, were stronger 
than castles, m_ore powerful than armies of vassals ; 
that none were better fitted to conduct the affairs 
of state than they who could well conduct the 
affairs of trade. 

The influence of commerce destroys the aris- 
tocracy of birth and rears the aristocracy of brains 
and consequent wealth. The history of England 
proves this. Encouraged by avaricious Henry VH. 
commerce flourished, merchants became a power 
in the land, and the Commons for the first time 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 2 1 1 

had a voice in the government of the kingdom. 
This influence is felt no less to-day than then. It 
is peacefully revolutionizing England. Her mer- 
chants are her lords, her lords are becoming mer- 
chants. 

"The Duke of Norfolk deals in salt, 

The Douglas in red herrings ; 
And guerdoned sword and titled land 
Are powerless to the notes of hand 

Of Rothschild and the Barrings." 

Commerce gives to a nation two most important 
elements of stability : wealth to arm and defend ; 
common interests to unite. 

Greece deified art, philosophy, war, and agricul- 
ture ; but the teachings of her sages were hostile to 
commerce. Xenophon doubted its advantages to a 
state. Plato excluded it from his imaginary 
Republic. But when the conqueror of the 
world was forced to besiege the peaceful city of 
Tyre seven months, he saw and acknowledged the 
power of commerce as an element of strength. 
And when the iron hand that had held together the 
Macedonian states was laid low in death, then was 
seen in dismembered, mangled Greece, the folly of 
that policy which despised commerce as an element 
of unity. 

Guarded by what power did Alexandria remain 
for nearly two centuries the centre of learning and 
civilization .? What made Venice for fifteen 



2 1 2 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

hundred years a bulwark for Christendom ? United 
by what interests did the cities of the Netherlands 
resist so long and successfully the oppression of 
Philip 11. ? Only when their commerce was wrested 
from them by the resistless force of progress did 
their glory and their strength depart. 

Commerce not only arms and defends, but through 
its attendant institutions its influence is powerful 
for peace and against rebellion. A nation does not 
rush blindly into war, whose treasures in manufac- 
tories and mills, locked up in warehouses, or float- 
ing in ships, fall an easy prey to an eager enemy, 
a pillaging soldiery, or the torch of a mob. 

Look at the English, the only purely commercial 
and manufacturing people on the globe, and com- 
pare v>7ith them the French or Irish, agricultural in 
their tendencies. It is the difference between a 
people of practical wisdom and a people of theories ; 
between a people united in a common cause of get- 
ting, where interests of employer and employee are 
one, and a people who regard their landlords as 
their natural enemies. In times of the greatest 
misery, when half-starved English operatives can 
get but quarter-days' work, even then is violence 
rarely done. Master and man are alike losers, and 
the latter knows full well that destruction of factory 
or machinery makes starvation complete. The 
same misery in Ireland would cause bread riots all 
over the island ; in France, a revolution. Do you 



EXHIBITION OF 1872. 213 

say that commerce did not protect the United 
States from a rebelHon ? The South were ever 
agricultural. They took up arms with the rashness 
and readiness of a people who know their lands 
will remain whatever be lost. 

But nations established, freedom gained, a gov- 
ernment enduring, are little without the religion of 
the Lord Jesus Christ ; and so we claim as the 
crowning glory for commerce, its powerful mission- 
ary influence. It has often been the pioneer, 
always the aid of Christianity. It spread Greek 
art and the Greek language so that the Apostles 
spoke to the world when they spoke their Greek 
gospels. Since the days when Paul went down to 
Rome in an Alexandrian merchantman, wherever 
commerce has spread her sails, there floats the 
banner of the cross. 

In the interests of commerce the earth is girdled 
by railways, grooved by canals, netted by the tele- 
graph. India and the East come four thousand 
leagues northward through the completed channel 
of the Pharaohs. Exclusive Celestials open 
their ports to outside barbarians and people our 
shores ; the Occident and the Orient clasp hands. 
By a grand system of division of labor, the business 
of each nation becomes a specialty, and all mutually 
dependent. Nations come face to face ; old preju- 
dices disappear ; religious antipathies are forgotten ; 
a highway is prepared for the missionary and the 



214 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



Bible. Bodies so radiate and receive heat that all, 
giving and taking, come to the same temperature, 
and still give and take. Commerce will yet do as 
much for mankind ; for with commerce of material 
will come commerce of strength and experience and 
sympathy ; and by and by, there shall be one 
race, one brotherhood, better than a ' ' federation 
of the world ; " and war drums and battle flags 
shall be unused, because there shall be but one 
cause and one king — God over all. 



EXHIBITION OF 1873. 

"The Indebtedness of English Literature to the Bible," 
Olives. Ernesto Branch. 

"The Battle of Gettysburg and its Results," 

RoDOLPHUs Charles Briggs, 
William DeLoss Love. 

"The Relations of Labor and Capital," 

Edward David Mathews. 

" Representative Orators," 

John William O'Brien. 

" The Unification of Italy," 

Lansing Lee Porter. 

" Cardinal Richelieu." 



THE INDEBTEDNESS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE TO 

THE BIBLE. 



BY OLIVER E. BRANCH. 



( C ^T^HK Bible," says a distinguished writer, ''is 
1 the basis not onl}^ of all true belief, but of 
everything permanent in human thought and action. '' 
History verifies the truth of this remark. Nowhere 
is it illustrated with more singular beauty than in 
the development and growth of English literature. 
There are three particulars in which English lit- 
erature stands indebted to the Bible : in language, 
thought, and spirit. With some writers this indebt- 
edness is direct and vital ; with others, indirect and 



2 1 6 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

accidental ; with all, it is an essential element of 
excellence, for it emanates from a divine source. 

For three centuries the languages of two opposing 
civilizations struggled for supremacy in England. 
Now it was the Saxon, simple, solemn, picturesque, 
with its dark legends and wild traditions. Now it 
was the Norman, easy, airy, Romanesque, with its 
ideas of law, chivalry and honor. Unable to 
coalesce, these languages, modified by use and mutual 
contact, at last mingled. The result was a new 
language, in structure composite, in nature assimi- 
lative ; yet too v/eak for sustained poetry, too harsh 
for graceful prose. What was wanting to this 
wondrous language, born of the gloomy north and 
nurtured in the south t Vigorous without grace, 
strong without beauty, in form complete yet want- 
ing in character, it needed the moulding hand of 
genius to harmonize its discordant elements and 
form it for the ends of national thought and speech. 
Chaucer, Norman in thought, Saxon in style, failed 
to make the language of the ' ' Canterbury Tales " 
the language of the people. Not until the Bible, 
with its Hebrew grandeur of thought and richness 
of expression, stood translated into the new tongue, 
did the English language becomic fixed in the heart 
of the nation. ''England had found her book," 
and with it a voice. 

The change wrought in language by the transla- 
tion of the Bible was followed by a total revolution 



EXHIBITION OF 1873, 2 1 7 

in thought. It began with WycHffe, when he 
raised his voice against a corrupt priesthood, threw 
open the doors of the monasteries, and gave the 
Bible to the people in their native tongue. Stifled 
and crushed by the power of papal might, it reap- 
peared in the sixteenth century, when the human 
intellect throv/ing off the lethargy of ages, awoke 
to new life and action. It was the age of printing, 
and the Bible of Tyndale, known and read every- 
where, was moving the hearts of men to nobler 
aims and aspirations. What now to poets were the 
dim and hollow forms of mythology, the idle deeds 
of chivalry, when truth, eternal and unchanging 
from the heart of the Infinite, could lead the Muses 
up to loftiest heights of poesy and song 1 Why 
should philosophy longer lose itself in unending 
speculation, when the light of revelation was pour- 
ing its radiance through every maze of uncertainty 
and doubt } Previous to the sixteenth century the 
cultured thought of England found its most perfect 
expression in cathedral architecture. The stately 
piles of York, Salisbury and St. Paul's were some- 
thing more than' shrines, they were the embodi- 
ment of the whole aesthetic and devotional thought 
of the age. In every stone and column of these 
massive structures, from crypt to choir, from roof 
to pinnacle, was embalmed some sentiment of 
adoration which mediaeval darkness could not ob- 
scure. The light and graceful shaft, the windows, 
15 



2 1 8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

filled with the pictures of saints and martyrs, 
the heavenward springing arch, the delicate and 
airy spire, typified the upward, soul-absorbing 
thoughts of men which language could not express. 
The awakening spirit of the Reformation and the 
consequent dissemination of the Bible, revolu- 
tionized ideas ; and thought, which before had 
formed the sensuous language of cathedrals, blos- 
somed into a literature which made classic the age 
of Elizabeth. 

Through every literature there runs some central 
idea, a reigning spirit, peculiarly its own. With 
the Grecian, it is the noble life of heroic paganism ; 
with the Roman, imperial law and order ; with the 
Italian, it is the fiery, restless patriotism of Dante. 
With English literature, this spirit is preeminently 
Christian. For this it is indebted to the Bible. 
How it stirred the great soul of Milton and raised 
him to those epic heights, from which he saw a 
' ' Paradise Lost " and a ' * Paradise Regained. " 
How it haunted the breast of Charles Dickens, 
never ceasing until he had carried the story of Eng- 
land's ''friendless poor" into every English home. 
It animated the marvelous intellect of Francis 
Bacon, and he organized that system of philosophy 
which broke the tyranny of scholasticism and set 
learning free from the thraldom which had bound 
it for ages. Like a line of light it pierced the gloom 
of Bedford jail, where sat John Bunyan ; and the 



EXHIBIT ION OF 1873. 2 1 9 

Pilgrim's progress ended at last, upon the serene 
heights of the Delectable Mountains. Sliaks- 
peare, looking with clearest vision upon every side 
of human nature, could scarcely have realized his 
grand conceptions under the cold light of Grecian 
ethics. But he felt something of that spirit of 
purity, generous love and fine humanity, whose 
divine essence the Bible alone contains ; and to-day 
the world applauds the proud virtue of Claudio's 
sister, and weeps with Lear at thought of Cordelia's 
unswerving filial love. 

The waters of the ^Egean bore one summed 
morning to their shore the stark and motionless 
form of Shelley. In his pocket was found a book, 
whose well-worn pages told a story of earnest, 
thoughtful study. What was that book } Was it 
Rousseau } Was it Paine .? Was it Voltaire .'* Far 
from it. It was a Bible, a token of maternal solici- 
tude and love. A professed atheist, proclaiming to 
the v/orld his unbelief, he stood entranced with the 
beauty of Scripture poetry ; and who shall say how 
it stilled the wild unrest, the passionate longings of 
his heart, as it upbore the pinions of his strange, 
mysterious fancy. Byron, dissolute, wayward, 
misanthropic, found the sources of his deepest in- 
spiration in the simplicity of Moses' narratives and 
the sublimity of David's Psalms. How they thrilled 
his impulsive soul is sung in the "Hebrew Melo- 
dies, " and written on the burning brow of ' ' Cain. " 



a ao THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

But tho Biblo has \c{{ a tairor innMint upon the 
\\x'w ^o\v^ ot l'aii;Luul than that ro\oaK\l in tho 
passionate school ot l>yron and ShoUoy. Tho purity 
of Vouui;- and Hrownini;. tho swootnoss c^f C\->\vper 
and llonians. tho po^nloss doNotion of Tollook and 
Wordsworth, tho pathos and tondornoss of Tonny- 
son. aro but tho rotlox of that onnohhni;- prinoi^^lo 
of lo\ which thoy found and foh in tho i;os{Hds of 
Christ. Subtle, ohastonins;', por\asi\o. subduiui;' 
tho sensuous, sustainin;;' tho spiritual, it lii;htons 
"The Task," ohoors "Tho Castaway," and lays an 
•'In Monioriani " upon tho oarly i^ravo of friend- 
ship. What thoui^h eold rationalism drove Thalia 
frightened from the shores of h^-anee ! She had yet 
followers in England. From /ion's hill the\ caught 
their brightest glimpses of Parnassus ; and n\ingled 
the waters of Castalia's fountain with the brook 

" — that flowed f£istby the oraclo of e^Jod." 

Not alone in poetry and philosoph)' is the indebt- 
edness of English literature to the Hible revealed. 
It pervades the donuiin of science and criticism. 
It reaches to the sources of forensic achievement. 
It is the life and soul of pulpit triumph. Newton 
ponders by day and night over the Old restament and 
startles the world by his discoveries. Locke studies 
the g'ospels and the prophets and builds up a sys- 
tem of logic. Addison pours over the simple stories 
of Joseph and Ruth, and the S/wtator becomes 



JiXJIJJUf ION O/-' 1873. 2 2 1 

a modf:l of classic elegance and grace. Did Chat- 
ham seek for a type of lofty eloquence ? He found 
it in the sublimity and grandeur of Isaiah. Did 
Burke search for an example of profound reasoning 
and resistless argument t He looked not alone to 
the oratory of Demosthenes, but to that which 
made Felix tremble and almost persuaded King 
Agrippa. Barrow and Jeremy Taylor, Tillotson 
and Richard Baxter have bequeathed to English 
literature a priceless legacy ; for the quickening 
spirit of the Bible animated them and unloosed their 
tongues for bravest utterance. 

Wherever we turn in English literature, whether 
to fiction or song, allegory or tragedy, epic poetry 
or philosophic prose, there the Bible has left its im- 
press. Here it borrows the language ; there the 
thought. Here it catches the spirit ; there the 
style. Here it takes an allusion and points a moral ; 
there a character and weaves a romance. The wife 
of Ahab is transfigured in the wife of Macbeth ; the 
Rebecca of Moses' charming story is the Rebecca 
of ''Ivanhoe." The virtues which light up the 
Parables shine through the '' Faery Queen ;" and 
the shouts which ring in the Messiah of Isaiah are 
echoed in the ' ' Messiah " of Pope. 

When the monks of Lutterworth had burned the 
bones of John Wycliffe, they threw his ashes into 
the little stream that sang and murmured by the 
good man's door. And the Swift bore them to the 



222 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Avon, and the Avon to the Severn, and the Severn 
to the sea. So the Bible, which Wychffe labored 
to give the world, has extended its influence through 
a thousand channels, until it warms and colors the 
whole vast ocean of English thought. It sustains 
law, directs science, inspires music, elevates art, 
vivifies letters. Read from the sacred desk, in the 
closet, around the hearthstone ; lisped in childish 
accents at a mother's knee ; falling in broken tones 
from patriarchal lips ; it finds its shining way into 
every heart, and lifts man up to heaven and God. 



EXHIBITION OF 1874. 

'The Supernatural in Literature," 

Abel Edward Blackmar, 

Edgar Ai Enos. 
"John Stuart Mill : The Man and the Philosopher," 

Charles Carroll Hemenway. 
"The First and Nineteenth Centuries of the Christian Re- 
ligion," 

George William Knox. 
" The Siege of Londonderry, " 

John Phillips Silvernail. 
"President Lincoln and his First Cabinet," 

Perry Hiram Smith. 
"Shakspeare and Goethe." 



THE SUPERNATURAL IN LITERATURE. 



BY EDGAR A. ENOS. 



A BELIEF in the supernatural is common to all 
ages and peoples. The Indian prostrate 
before his idol ; the Greek hymning praises to his 
hero gods ; the Norseman encompassed by the 
deities of earth and sky ; the Hebrew obeying the 
voice of an unseen and mysterious Providence, are 
alike significant of man's instinctive belief in a 
higher power. That this all-embracing faith should 
appear in literature, was inevitable ; for literature, 
in its higher forms, is but the mirror in whose sur- 



2 24 ^^^ CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

face lies reflected humanity with all its thoughts, 
hopes, passions and beliefs. 

The supernatural as an element in literature, 
presents three phases : the practical, the poetic and 
the religious. In its practical phase, it appears 
as an agency disposing events. Clothed in 
some awful guise, it moves through a story, or 
broods over a poem, like the spirit of destiny. Re- 
vealing itself at intervals, it thwarts the designs of 
the wicked ; advances the fortunes of the virtuous ; 
and with scimitar edge cuts the knot in which the 
characters seem hopelessly bound. By a dream or 
a vision, a spectre or a prophecy, the literary artist 
reverses the whole current of imaginary life ; shapes 
the character and movement of his plot ; or hurries 
the march of events in converging lines to the final 
catastrophe. By means of a dream, Fitz James 
discovers the retreat of the Douglas; and by a vision, 
Alroy finds the hidden sceptre of Judah. The 
prophecy of Cassandra is decisive of Agamemnon's 
fate ; and the ghost in Henry's court at Kenilworth 
brings to justice the traitor knight of Blondeville. 

But the supernatural has a higher function in 
literature than that of mere framework or machinery. 
It furnishes material which contains the rarest ele- 
ments of poetry. Fused in the poet's brain, or 
moulded by the story-teller's plastic touch, they 
spring into life ; assume a thousand varied shapes, 
inspiring emotions of beauty, sublimity or terror. 



EXHIBITION OF 1874. 225 

As the light streaming through the stained windows 
of some old Gothic church, colors every object with 
its magic tints, so the supernatural appearing in a 
work of literary art, fills it with its presence, illum- 
inating every scene and character with an unearthly 
radiance. In Shakspeare's Tempest, it idealizes 
human life; in the Midsummer Night's Dream, paints 
the fantastic shapes of fairyland. The nymphs and 
fawns, the goblins and sprites, spirits of the moun- 
tain and the river, music in the air and voices of the 
night, — all the superhuman creations which crowd 
in ancient myth, or cling to time worn legend, find 
a shrine at last in the temple of poetry. 

Glance at the conceptions of the beautiful which 
here find embodiment. Few elements in literature 
present such wealth of form or range of aesthetic 
power. Beauty is here in all its diversity of char- 
acter and type ; now soft and sensuous, lulling us 
with a dream of houries, now of a severer cast, — Bel- 
lona beside Mars, or Juno descending from Olympus 
in her chariot. At one time we are lifted to ecstasy at 
the sight of elves and fairies, dancing in Titania's 
court to the music of unseen pla3^ers ; at another, 
thrilled in every fibre of our being as the enchanted 
palace of Triermain rises slowly upon our vision. 

Transcending the sphere of beauty, the super- 
natural brings to literature creations of true sub- 
limity. These are of two kinds, widely dissimilar 
in character. In both, the essence of sublimity 



2 2 6 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

lies in the manifestation of power ; in one case this 
is displayed in the physical world ; and in the other 
in the spiritual. One is a sublimity of matter, the 
other of intellect. One finds illustration in Vir- 
gil's Jupiter, throned on a cloud, darting his thun- 
derbolts, while the ocean roars and the moun- 
tains, toppling from their bases, fall in universal 
ruin. The other is seen in Milton's Satan, lying in 
dim and shadowy vastness upon the burning marl 
of hell; fallen, yet unsubdued; triumphing over 
an agony of suffering by dint of his unconquerable 
will ; and with far-reaching ambition, maturing new 
plans of rebellion. 

But it is in the realm of terror that the su- 
pernatural as a poetic element finds its freest 
exercise. Upon literature in all its stages, from 
the finished products of classic art to the wild frag- 
ments chanted by scald, or warlock, it has left its 
awful imprint. Here it is the witches in Macbeth, 
prompting the murder of Duncan; there Clorinda's 
blood, flowing from the wounded cypress. At one 
time we are horrified by a struggle like that between 
Michael and the adversary ; at another, by a 
weird and portentous repose like that which reigns 
over the House of Usher. Viewless forms and 
impalpable shapes meet us at every turn, and invest 
the most familiar objects with a supernal spell. 
Life itself gathers a fearful meaning when made to 
yield its secret to Frankenstein's transforming skill ; 



EXHIBITION OF 1874. 227 

and death presents new terrors when some disem- 
bodied spirit, breathing the atmosphere of another 
world and holding the mysteries of the future, glides 
before us. 

But the supernatural element has a significance 
above the reach of mere utility however efficient, or 
poetic art however lofty and inspiring. Its mere pres- 
ence in literature is at once the sign and proclamation 
of a divine idea. The rude mythology of the north, 
spreading its runic tracery over Scandinavian 
and Celtic song, witnesses to the fact that religion 
is man's necessity ; while the more finished creations 
that crowd the pantheon of Hellenic poetry, em- 
blem the central truths of revelation. Zeus, 
sitting above the lesser gods, — invisible, supreme, 
— points to a primitive monotheism. The Delphian 
oracle is an echo of the response by Urim and 
Thummim. Hades, with its Elysian fields and 
Tartarian gulf, affirms the doctrine of a future 
life with its rewards and punishments. In 
the sentence of Prometheus we read the curse 
of Adam ; and the mediation of ' ' great Loxias " 
shadows forth the necessity and hope of a reconcil- 
ing God-Man. The spirits and divinities which move 
in epic life, or sweep through the ever-shifting scenes 
of ancient tragedy, represent those attributes which 
rest in the Infinite and are imaged in the human 
soul. In Dike, we see eternal justice ; in Themis 
all-pervading law ; in Nemesis, sleepless retribu- 



2 2 8 THE CLA RK PRIZE BOOK. 

tion ; in the Furies, swift vengeance ; in black 
Ate, the irreversible decrees of God. 

As these vague conceptions of the unseen found 
a voice in the writings of classic paganism, so the 
more definite truths of Christianity became expressed 
in the literatures of the new Romanic and Gothic 
nationalities. The longings and premonitions of 
faith, its martyr-devotions, its struggles and auster- 
ities, suddenly flowed in a tide of song from 
Dante's burning heart, and formed that fiery symbol 
of mediaeval Catholicism, — the Divine Comedy. 
In its matchless pictures are portrayed the spiritual 
ideas of the middle ages, — the awfulness of sin and 
retribution, expiation through purifying fire, and 
the rest and refreshment of paradise. Goethe's 
tragedy of Faust with its Mephistopheles and 
spirits infernal and celestial, is the exponent of a 
subtile, religious philosophy ; and Milton's ' 'cathe- 
dral epic" rings with supernatural music whose 
sublime burden is ' * eternal Providence and the 
ways of God to men." 

Such is the supernatural as a religious element in 
letters. It is an inner life witnessing to divine 
things, — a soul which shines through and reveals 
with greater or less distinctness the spiritual con- 
dition of man in any given age. In the ancient 
Vedas, it is a note of wonder and superstitious fear; 
in the heathen classics, it assumes the outlines of a 
belief ; in Christia-n literature, it is a clear and dom- 



EXHIBITION OF 1874. 229 

inant faith, pointing to the altar-throne where 
Christ Hfts up his face — royal, messianic. 

It is related that a certain king was accustomed 
at times to visit the tomb of Catherine of Sienna, 
and to carry away with him on each occasion some 
precious relic of the saint, which became in his 
hands a talisman of wondrous virtue. So the liter- 
ary artist repairs to the shrine of the supernatural, 
and bears away some spiritual token with which 
to move the minds and hearts of men. By its 
agency he orders and controls the events of mimic 
life, kindles poetic feeling, and proclaims the death- 
less truths of relig^ion. 



EXHIBITION OF 1875. 

" iEschylus and Shakspeare as Masters of Tragedy," 
Frank Samuel Child. 

" The Transportation Problem," 

Samuel William Eddy, 
JosiAH Augustus Hyland. 

"The Bible in Art," 

Milton Watson George. 

" The Opening of the Mississippi in 1S62," 

William Ebenezer Lewis. 

" The Humorous Element in the History of Reforms," 
Charles Kirkland Seward. 

"Ancient and Modern Heroism." 



THE HUMOROUS ELEMENT IN THE HISTORY OF 
REFORMS. 



BY CHARLES K. SEWARD. 



ALL things human are capable of improvement. 
The imperfections of man leave their impress 
upon his works. The history of religion, politics, 
social science, of civilization, is but a series of 
amendments of the defective, vicious or corrupt ; a 
history of reforms. Some have been vast upheavals, 
which have shaken society to its foundations. 
Others have taken place so quietly, that their exist- 
ence has been scarcely known. In this extensive 
field, what has been the place of the humorous ele- 
ment } \ 



EXHIBIl ION OF 187s. 2 3 1 

Humor is too subtle for definition. In its broad- 
est sense, it is inborn in the human race, and touches 
a responsive chord in every nature. It is a charac- 
teristic that distinguishes man from the animal. It 
was shown in the will of Rabelais, * * I owe much ; 
I have nothing ; I leave the rest to the poor." It 
appeared in the dying words of Saint Lawrence, 
broiling on the gridiron, "Turn me, for I am done 
on one side." No occasion is too solemn for its 
manifestation. The humorous has entered into all 
reforms. In some, it has been almost imperceptible. 
In others, it has been a leading feature. Only 
when the other elements are brought into due prom- 
inence, can its proper sphere be determined. 

The great reforms of the world's history have been 
few. Eighteen hundred years ago, Christianity 
supplanted paganism, and from the ashes of the old, 
arose a new and purer civilization. A mighty re- 
formation had taken place ; but only the perverted 
faculties of a Nero could discover humor in the re- 
ligion of ''the man of sorrows." 

Fourteen centuries passed away. There came 
another mighty reformation, and the same religion 
arose, purified from the corrupting touch of man. 
Here, too, the humorous has but little place. It is 
dwarfed into insignificance by the mightier forces 
which are at work. Erasmus may have laid the 
egg of the Reformation, but he also tried to break 
it. He scornfully asserted that the much revered 



232 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



handkerchief of Thomas a Becket, was not, at best, 
exalted above the orthodox youth of that indispen- 
sable article. He accused the priests of kissing the 
saints' old shoes, but not reading their books. He 
drove the monks to frenzy. But it was Luther, 
nailing his defiance to the door of the cathedral, 
who sounded the first note of the Reformation. 

Luther, springing from his bed, at the gnawing 
of a mouse, and searching with lighted candle for 
the devil; Luther, dashing his inkstand at the head 
of that same sulphurous personage, might create a 
smile. But there is a dreadful reality to the scene. 
Think of this man, weighed down with horror, 
wrestling in mental agony with the personification 
of the powers of hell. Search the history of the 
Reformation in every land, and it is with the same 
result. Did the Beggars of Holland provoke 
laughter by the absurdity of their costume } Yet 
the spirit that animated those men was the spirit 
that animated the bloodiest battle-fields of history 
and surrendered their native land to the cold embra- 
ces of the sea. 

Trace the history of revolutions, those stupen- 
dous political reforms which have shaken the whole 
structure of society. The author of * ' Lilliburlero " 
boasted that he had rhymed a king out of his king- 
dom. But it was only a boast. James H., backed 
by the bayonets of France, was not laughed out of 
a throne. In that bloody attempt to proclaim 



EXHIBITION OF 1873. 233 

''Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," Barere saw humor; 
but it was a humor that would make 

' ' Hell's burning rafters 
Unwillingly reecho laughters." 

When men are willing to die for an idea, when 
life, when all that they hold dearest, is at stake, 
the humorous element fades into nothingness be- 
side the soul-absorbing interest. 

There are reforms which fill no glowing page in 
history. Not less important, they nip those evils 
in the bud, which, developed, would demand severer 
treatment. Ever in progress, their name is legion, 
their mission the gradual improvement of the human 
race. Here vital interest does not engross. Here 
mightier forces are not at work, and the humorous 
element rises into prominence. Its objects are as 
numerous as its appreciation is universal, embrac- 
ing alike the petty weaknesses of mankind, and the 
most powerful political institutions. It sneers at 
vice and folly from the faultless metres of the poet 
who could say, 

"I own I'm proud — I must be proud to see 
Men not afraid of God afraid of me." 

Appearing in fiction, in Dr. Sangrado, it struck 
an effective blow at the heroic school of medicine 
which, adopting the motto, "kill or cure," bled 
and blistered refactory patients until it could truly 
boast, that chronic invalids were unknown. It 
16 



234 ^^^ CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

overflows in the genial pages of Dickens, ridiculing 
hypocrisy in the sleek Pecksniff, unable to eat with- 
out going into a pious rhapsody over the beautiful 
machinery of digestion, and spouting streams of 
maudlin morality, under the soothing influence of 
milk punch. It exposes the terrible defects of the 
English courts, pares the claws of Dodson and Fogg, 
or destroys the brutal schools of Yorkshire, by a 
faithful portrayal of the Squeers system of educa- 
tion. 

Rising to a higher sphere, humor appears in polit- 
ical reforms. In the scathing satire of Swift, it 
railed at the misgovernment of Ireland. In the 
sparkling wit of Sydney Smith, it forced the Reform 
Bill to an issue. In our own times, it is personi- 
fied in the caricatures of Nast, solving the conun- 
drum of the would-be statesman, ' ' What are you 
going to do about it t " In the progress of reforms, 
humor has been an important element. It points 
out and prunes off the excesses and inconsistences 
which would impede the progress of the original 
idea. Written with the deliberate intention of ridi- 
culing the Puritan reformers, Hudibras did not 
check Puritanism, but made it a greater power, by 
removing a fatal hypocrisy which would * ' compound 
for sins it was inclined to, by damning those it had 
no mind to." So with that well-known description 
of the meeting of the ' ' Brick Lane Branch of the 
United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance As- 



EXHIBITION OF 1873. 235 

sociation, " where the women were ' ' drowning them- 
selves in tea, " and the secretary was ' ' blowing him- 
self with toast and water ; " where Mr. Weller 
mournfully remarks to his son, '* If this here goes 
on much longer, Sammy, I shall feel called upon as 
a human bein' to rise and address the cheer. There's 
a young 'ooman, on the next form but two, as has 
drank nine breakfast cups and a half, and she's a 
swellin' wisibly before my wery eyes." The inten- 
tion was to ridicule the " tea-total" principle ; the 
result was to remove from temperance reforms a 
mass of inconsistences. 

As there have been false religions, so there have 
been false reforms. Some are wrong in principle. 
Others are but the unreasonable development of a 
true principle. Here is the grandest sphere of the 
humorous element. Here, transcending all other 
uses, it becomes the touchstone which detects truth, 
even in the midst of error. The true it may tem- 
porarily distort. The false it utterly annihilates. 
It has railed at Bergh, as a man whose compas- 
sionate nature would melt into tears at the thought 
of . beating an ^gg. Yet, despite ridicule, he has 
rooted out the old Italian idea which excused acts 
of the most fiendish cruelty on the plea '' that 
animals were not Christians," by showing conclu- 
sively that their tortures are still less entitled to 
that appellation. But when another philanthropist 
proposed to restore to suffering humanity all its 



236 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

lost virtues by a strictly vegetable diet, the wag- 
gish cry of *' squash-head," and other opprobrious 
vegetarian epithets, annihilated alike the reform 
and the peculiar logic of its originator. One was 
the consistent development of a true principle. 
The other was the inconsistent development of a 
Greeley principle. 

This truth receives its fullest illustration in that 
fen;inine shriek for independence, as embodied in 
the woman's rights movement. It has been greeted 
with a merriment so universal as to goad the ven- 
erable Miss Anthony into calling the lords of crea- 
tion a disreputable set of ''male despots." Yet 
ridicule has but distinguished the true from the 
false in this so-called reform. It has not prevented 
woman from obtaining a protection which she 
needs, or an occupation for which she is suited. 
It has checked the false ideas which demand for her 
everything from the right of voting to the right of 
shaving, which abolish marriage and other old 
fogy institutions, and by annihilating sex, seek to 
correct the bungling hand of the Creator. They 
quote Scripture with a facility which might make 
Satan wag his traditional tail with joy. To all argu- 
ment, they reply with the illogical vituperation of 
an infuriated virago. But they fall before the fire 
of a ridicule which designates their leaders as 
** morbid old maids," sums up their character in 
Mr. Tappertit's epithet of ' ' scraggy, " and suggests 



EXHIBIT ION OF iSfS. 237 

that marriage partakes of the nature of sour grapes, 
whose acidity has permeated their disposition. 
Ideas, costume, language, all the absurd incongrui- 
ties of this pseudo-reform have been so unmerci- 
fully ridiculed that its fate is sealed, and ere long 
its advocates will have to say, with the victim of 
connubial infelicity, that the appropriate sphere of 
woman is celestial. 

Such has been the humorous element in the his- 
tory of reforms. Its power is in showing the in- 
congruous. Its action is essentially destructive. 
Attacking corrupt men and institutions, it has 
cleared the way for reform by removing the obsta- 
cles in its path. Appearing in reforms already in 
progress, it lops off their suicidal inconsistencies. 
Retiring to a higher sphere, it has been the test be- 
fore which a true reform has been unharmed. A 
false reform has withered at its touch, as the 
human bodies, exhumed from Pompeii seemingly 
perfect, at the touch of air crumble into dust. In 
all it has existed, but in widely different degrees. 
In the mighty reformations of the word's history it 
has been overshadowed. In the lesser ones it rises 
into prominence. Here has been its appropriate 
sphere, not in those raging floods which have swept 
everything before them, but in the innumerable 
tributaries, which unite to form the mighty stream 
of human progress. 



EXHIBITION OF 1876. 

" Catherine de Medici and Mary Tudor," 

. Clarence Lidsley Barber. 
"The Language of a Nation a Source of its Power," 

James Fairbairn Brodie. 
" The Pathos of the Bible," 

Howard Parmelee Eells. 
"The Place of Music among the Fine Arts," 

Archibald Longworth Love. 
" The Humorous Side of American Politics," 

Humphrey McMaster. 
" The Transit of Venus in 1S74," 

Edward Charles Stringer. 



THE PATHOS OF THE BIBLE. 



BY HOWARD P. EELLS. 



PALESTINE, to-day, is a land of ruins. Fields, 
once fertile, are desert; hillsides, once clothed 
with vineyards, are barren and unsightly ; cities 
dismantled; harbors choked with rubbish and the 
refuse of the sea. All is worse than solitude, ac- 
cursed, ' ' trodden under foot of the Gentiles ;" yet, 
the hills are musical with words that shall outlast 
them an eternity. Traverse the valley of Hebron, 
— there lie the bones of the patriarchs ; visit the 
borders of the Dead Sea, — its sluggish waters roll 
over the cities of the plain, and trace the fire-storm 



EXHIBITION OF 1876. 239 

from heaven. And there, beautiful for situation, 
the Holy City stands, Jerusalem, whither the tribes 
went up ; the guilty city, where He warned, and 
healed and pleaded, over which He wept ; the fated 
city, desecrated by man's darkest crime, consecrat- 
ed by the marvelous manifestation of redeeming 
love. As the verification of prophetic truth ; as 
the centre of memories tenderest, most sacred ; 
these ruins are nature's tribute to the pathos of the 
Bible. They recall the touching narration of holy 
writ, whose sympathetic influence is felt wherever 
the word has gone forth. Divested of its pathos, 
the Bible were but a compilation of social ethics. 

An ancient legend has it, that a tyrant of the 
East went forth to battle vv^ith the Greeks. Gaz- 
ing upon the mass of living millions enlisted in his 
cause, the monarch's heart was melted. He wept, 
he knew not why. The tears came not, as he sup- 
posed, from any inference of reflection. They rose 
spontaneously, as they will at times, amid the bustle 
of a crowded thoroughfare. Our own emotions are 
reflected back from other hearts. We feel the 
thrill of spiritual contact, the mighty presence of 
life. Such is the pathos of the Bible, the underly- 
ing tenderness which makes the book of books, 
the book of human nature ; sounding the depths of 
human sympathy, universal, indefinable, profound. 

Poetry and pathos in the Bible are subordinate. 
It never controverts its sacred office, nor makes ef- 



240 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

feet a purpose. The tender and poetical are hum- 
ble instruments to seal the truth upon the con- 
sciences of men. The child, who cannot compre- 
hend the love divine, is melted as he hears from 
mother lips the sweet story of Him who was Him- 
self a babe at Bethlehem, who loved and blessed 
the children. The man, who, scarcely better than 
the child, can know the wonders of the same inex- 
plicable love, is impressed by the simplicity and 
tenderness that mark that strange, eventful life. 

A pathos akin to the sublime, is carried with the 
inspiration of the Bible. Not of their own power, 
not in their own strength, but as the spirit gave 
them utterance spake the holy men of God. An 
angel touched the prophet's lips with an altar coal. 
Amid the glory of the rushing chariot, the mantle 
fell on the waiting disciple. We feel the magic of 
that Presence, revealed on Sinai, and on Calvary, 
which dwelt between the cherubim, and led the 
chosen people like a flock. 

The attempt were futile to analyze or include the 
pathos of the Bible. The delicate sentiment which 
pervades the holy book defies disintegration. 
Whatever wakens a responsive echo in the heart, 
evokes the tender feeling. At the approach of 
formal scrutiny or cold analysis, it vanishes. 

In illustration of this Bible pathos, we instance 
from the lives of some whose names are household 
words, the portrayal of a single passion. ' ' Bless- 



EXHIBITION OF 1876. 241 

ings be with them, and eternal praise, who gave us 
noble loves." 

We scan the sacred pages but for a moment, for 
an instance of fraternal love. A palace in the land 
of Egypt ; the famine years of Pharaoh ; a ruler of 
the land, and a poor company of Israelites from 
Canaan. The story rushes to the mind : the trial 
of the guilty brethren ; the finding of the cup with 
little Benjamin; the final recognition when Joseph, 
who was sold a captive, weeps upon his brother's 
neck. This is no solitary instance. Few eulogies 
are so affecting as the lamentation of the Psalmist 
for his friend : 

" I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan ; 
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me ; 
Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.' 

But in the life of David there are stories of a love 
whose springs lie deeper. To their pathos many a 
father's heart will testify. He has an infant son, 
the child of his old age, the only one of her whose 
place was first in his affections. The Lord has 
claimed his own. The king, with face upon the 
earth, wrestles all night for the dear life ; but no 
"amen" is sent. Silence has fallen on the house, 
bearing on its wings the dreaded truth. With 
trembling lips he asks, ' ' Is the child dead .?" They 
answer, "He is dead." But when they looked to 
see him overwhelmed. 



242 1HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

" Behold his face grew calm, 
He silently went in and shortly came, 
Robed and anointed, forth, and to the house 
Of God went up to pray ; 
And when they marvelled, said, 
' The child is dead, and I shall go to him, 
But he will not return to me.' " 

Again his yearning heart is bruised, and by a 
son's ingratitude. At length has come a final strug- 
gle with the rebels. The battle rages in the wood 
of Ephraim ; and David sits between the gates at 
Mahanaim, awaiting anxiously the end. Tidings 
of victory at last ; but Absalom is slain. The in- 
jured king is lost in the stricken father. The agony 
in that little chamber over the gate at Mahanaim 
will ever be a type of the parental grief which 
passes all description and finds vent in the one wail, 
" O Absalom, my son, my son ! " 

Recall the scene of Moses' death, an instance of 
thej'patriotic love which marked the life of him 
who, as youth, disdained adoption by the heathen king, 
choosing rather to suffer with God's persecuted peo- 
ple. The Promised Land, hope of those forty 
weary years, stretches before him, almost attained. 
With lingering look the prophet gazes, then bows 
unmurmuring to the Almighty will. Traditions 
crowd in to fill up the blank ; but the silence of the 
sacred narrative refuses to be broken. In that 
strange land, ''the land of Moab, Moses, the ser- 
vant of the Lord, died according to the word of the 



EXHIBITION OF 1876. 243 

Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land 

of Moab." Apart from countrymen, unhonored by 

funeral obsequies, unvisited by grateful pilgrims, 

"no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.'* 

Seek the grave on Nebo, or the tomb on Golgotha ; 

darkness envelops the sacred spot. 

The tragedy of Jephthah's daughter finds a parallel 

in classic legend. Contrast the Jewish maiden's 

fortitude with the despair of Sophocles' Antigone. 

To both, a childless death had all the horror of 

traditional disgrace. But one accepts, without a 

murmur, the conditions of that fatal vow ; the other 

exclaims in helplessness and misery, ' ' I shall be 

married to Acheron !" The sacrifice of Jephthah's 

daughter was not the offering of a reluctant victim, 

as when the living Gaul or Greek was buried in the 

Roman forum. Hateful in itself to God, it had that 

feature of pure filial love, which gives to the story 

its tenderness, to the character its nobleness. 

' ' How beautiful it were to die 
For God and for my sire !" 

Amid much of Bible narrative that is foreign to 
our life and thoughts, the story of Rachel is as 
fresh and natural as if it happened yesterday. As 
if, in some deserted city, we came upon a home 
strewn with household vessels, children's toys, pil- 
lows retaining the impress of heads which lay 
upon them but an hour ago. Jacob's love for 
Rachel was the one self-sacrificing affection of his 



244 ^^^ CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

life. For her sake the seven years of trial seemed 
as nothing, ** for the love he had to her." Dearest 
of all on earth to him, her children seem to have 
been dearer for her sake than for their own. 

But all images of feminine purity, tenderness 
and courage seem rough and poor beside that maid 
of Galilee, wending her unnoticed way to the 
mother of John the Baptist, her ov/n soul full of mother 
love. Alone, with the hope of the world in her 
heart, she crossed the hills to meet the one other 
woman who might share the secret of her joy. No 
lilies sprang in her path ; no millennial lambs and 
lions did her homage. But God himself was with 
her, *' a thousand liveried angels lackey her," and 
all along the solitary way her soul did magnify the 
Lord, and her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour. 

Is there not a depth of pathos in the narrative 
of these historical events that cluster about the one 
event which began all Christian history, that He to 
whom every knee in heaven and earth shall bow, 
once lay, at Bethlehem, a babe on this poor Gali- 
lean woman's breast t 



EXHIBITION OF 1877. 

' ' The Destruction of Jerusalem a Fulfilment of Prophecy, 

Frank Dorr Budlong. 
" The Humor and Pathos of the American Revolution," 

Harry Wirt Cockerill. 
"Realism in Literature," 

George Hodges. 
" The Moslem in Europe," 

Charles Sumner Hoyt. 
"The Present, the Golden Age," 

William Clifford McAdam. 
"The Heroism of General Havelock," 

Frank Vandermooler Mills. 



THE HEROISM OF GENERAL HAVELOCK. 



BY FRANK V. MILLS. 



HEROISM needs not to be defined. Yet there 
is a distinction worth while to note, between 
the man of heroic deeds and the man of heroic Hfe. 
The heroism of the former is that of Mark Antony 
or Benedict Arnold ; that of the latter is signally 
illustrated in the brave, unselfish and blameless life 
of Henry Havelock. 

His career in India is bright with deeds of valor. 
From the day he scaled the walls at Rangoon until 
his death, his life was a series of unparalleled ex- 
ploits. Yet the bravest of his deeds takes on a 



246 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

brighter glory from the heroic nature of the man ; 
from the spirit and high purpose of his hfe. There 
is something subhme in the patience and resolution 
with which he trod the path of duty. Rarely has 
one of such genius and energy, with such a brave 
heart and wise head, been so little honored by the 
government from which he deserved so much. 
After fever and shipwreck ; after campaigns in the 
mountains of Afghanistan and on the burning plains 
of the Persian Gulf ; after a score of years service 
in India, he held but a subordinate position in the 
army. His heroism was not that of the self-seek- 
ing place-hunter ; it was tarnished neither with self- 
ishness nor unholy ambition. Not until England 
mourned the gray haired veteran whom her people 
loved and trusted, not until our own flag was low- 
ered to his memory, did Parliament grant to him 
those honors, alike ennobling to the heroes who re- 
ceives and the government who confers them. Par- 
liament perceived his conspicuous heroism only in 
time to lay honors upon his tomb. But in India 
and among his companions in arms, there was quick 
and constant recognition of his heroic life. Lord 
Bentinck, Governor general, promoted him ' ' be- 
cause he was the fittest man for it. " To the officers 
at Cabool, he was the ' ' guiding spirit of the army. " 
Sir James Outram, appointed to command at Cawn- 
poor, in admiration of his brilliant deeds in arms, 
offered cheerfully to wave superior rank and ten- 



EXHIBITION OF 1877. 247 

dered his military services to General Havelock as 
a volunteer. 

A stern commander, a thorough disciplinarian, 
he enforced the strictest obedience. But when he 
laid aside official character, the tender and kind but 
not less manly qualities of the Christian man ap- 
peared. As he tosses upon his sleepless couch, in 
a struggle between love for his family and duty to 
his country ; as he shares the last drink of water 
with a perishing comrade in the fatal Bolan Pass ; 
as he weeps over horrible scenes at Cawnpoor, and 
with his own hand ministers to the wants of the 
dying warrior, we see the husband and the father ; 
the self-sacrificing soldier ; the tender-hearted 
commander ; the heroism of a noble and unselfish 
life. No wonder that weary soldiers, lying in the 
streets to catch a moment's rest after the battle of 
Bithoor, spring to their feet at sight of him and 
cry, '' Clear the way for the General." No wonder 
that the cheers that rend the air as he passes down 
the line, are followed by the earnest prayer, " God 
save the General." 

To culture and a thorough knowledge of his pro- 
fession. General Havelock added a quick and uner- 
ring judgment, great caution and sagacity. 

But his heroism was not alone displayed amid 
''the pomp and ceremony of war." His was not 
the heroism of mere physical courage ; but to that 
he joined the sublime courage of him, who, fearing 



248 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

to do wrong, has no other fear. He was as good as 
he was great. Whatever his circumstances or po- 
sition, his Christian character was always evident. 
Refused promotion, on account of his rehgion, stig- 
matized as a Baptist ; scoffed at by irreverent offi- 
cers and men, he still meekly but bravely bore the 
banner of the cross. Religion was vitalized and 
throned within him. It governed his actions and 
gave character to his life. Out of the small pay of 
a subaltern he consecrated the scriptural tenth to 
the Master. Let the march be ever so long and 
wearisome he would ever find two hours for devo- 
tion. In a heathen temple he leads his troops in 
the worship of God. Shipwrecked upon the Bay 
of Bengal, he gathered passengers and crew to ren- 
der thanks for deliverance. Everywhere, a noble 
type of the Christian soldier, he ' ' wears the white 
flower of a blameless life." 

The influence and power of such a character upon 
his men is illustrated by an incident. General 
Campbell, calling for a certain troop, was told that 
they were too drunk for service. "Then," said he, 
' ' call out Havelock's saints, they are never drunk 
and Havelockis always ready." The bugle sounded; 
the *' saints" fell into line ; the ranks closed grandly 
up, and under the lead of him who had so often 
led them in prayer they charged upon the enemy 
and put him to flight. 

After proceeding from service to service, from 



EXHIBITION OF 1877. 249 

victory to victory, exhibiting his wisdom and brav- 
ery in a hundred Indian battles, General Have- 
lock enters upon his last campaign. Its object was 
the relief of Cawnpoor and Lucknow, besieged by 
a host of rebel sepoys. The task demanded great 
energy, and courage and military skill. The little 
army commenced its march. Beat upon by scorch- 
ing sun and driving rain, wet and w^eary, often they 
laid down at night without food or tents. Here 
they lift their heavy guns over swamps and morasses; 
there they train them upon the enemy and 
drive him from his strongholds ; and so, over deluged 
fields, through swollen rivers and across burning 
plains, they press steadily on towards their be- 
leaguered friends. A splendid march — one hundred 
and thirty miles in seven days — in the midst of a 
tropical summer, and they are almost in sight of 
Cawnpoor. Four battles are w^on ; the last barrier 
removed and the heroic leader waits for the day, 
to take the city. But hark ! The roar of cannon 
rends the night air. The army rushes forward and 
enters the town, but alas ! instead of the enemy 
they see on every side the mangled forms of women 
and children and old men slaughtered by the treach- 
erous Nana Sahib. 

Thus ended the first act of the terrible tragedy. 

The last displays in even brighter colors the heroism 

of Havelock. Cawnpoor is now to be garrisoned and 

Lucknow relieved. It was work requiring a brave 

17 



250 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

heart and wise head. The Ganges, overflowing its 
banks, must be bridged and crossed under the fire of 
the enemy. Then forty miles of hostile country, 
swarming with rebels, lie between them and the city. 
There is pestilence in the air. The heroic march 
accomplished, Lucknow itself frowns upon them. 
In rifle pits, on housetops, behind breastworks and 
palace walls, forty thousand barbarous and blood- 
thirsty men, who keep no faith and show no mercy, 
await their coming. 

' * Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, 
That terrible, sickening fight, 
Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze 
In his veins at the sight ? " 

Twice the attempt is made ; twice the gallant 
army, weakened by disease and disseminated by 
pestilence is compelled to retreat. The dangers of 
the position demand a sublime and calculating cour- 
age on the part of the commander. Conflicting ar- 
guments, interests and emotions beset him. On the 
one hand are the prayers of the beleaguered garrison 
and the orders of the government ; on the other, 
the terrible torture of delay and the taunt of faint- 
heartedness. This way lies the goal of ambition ; 
that way, the loss of his command. To advance 
was to ensure a personal triumph, but a military 
failure, while a retreat promised humiliation for him- 
self but ultimate success for the army. Now the 
heroism of the man finds its sublimest exhibition. 



EXHIBITION OF 1877. 2 5 1 

Disregarding all personal interest, laying all upon 
his country's altar and with an eye single to her 
advantages, he decided the momentous question 
and determined to wait for aid. 

At length it came. The toilsome journey is done. 
Lucknow stands before them and the march of 
of death begins. On, along the elevated road, raked 
by the enemy's fire, across the bridge, through nar- 
row, tortuous streets lurid with discharge of mus- 
ketry, over bristling breastworks, ''right into the 
jav/s of death," on they sweep ! " Grape and can- 
nister, shell and shrapnel rain upon them. On 
through the gardens, over the palisades, across the 
rifle pits, strewing their dead like autumn leaves," 
for two miles through the city, on, on they go. Bar- 
rier after barrier is broken ; the smoke rolls away ; 
the great gate swings open, and with shouts of 
triumph the column enter the residency. Lucknow 
is relieved ; the immortal victory is won, but fatigue 
and exposure had brought the victor low. He was 
now to meet the last enemy to whom all must yield. 
Having called his son to "come and see how a 
Christian could die," in the hour of his great 
triumph, while the people for whom he had given 
his life were rejoicing in their deliverance, he *' fell 
asleep," covered with as much glory as ever sur- 
rounded the name of a British hero. And it was 
said, ''Mourn not for him, for a nobler, braver, 
purer spirit never winged its way to God." 



EXHIBITION OF 1878. 

"An Ancient and a Modern Battle as Typical of the Old and 
New Civilizations," 

Seward Duane Allen, 

Charles Rawson Kingsley. 
" The Ideal Element in Literature, " 

Henry White Callahan. 
"The Pennsylvania Miner," 

James Alton Davis. 
"Four Scenes in the Life of Washington Illustrating his 
Character," 

George William Ellis. 
"Remorse as Delineated in English Poetry," 

William Lorenzo Parsons. 
"American and English Humor." 



REMORSE AS DELliNEATED IN ENGLISH POETRY. 



BY WILLIAM L. PARSONS. 



REMORSE in English poetry is unmistakably a 
voice of warning. It holds up to evil doers 
the terrors of the law. Mirrored in its clear ex- 
panse, guilt sees its blackest image, and retribution 
stalks with swift and certain step. 

Shakspeare was a moral teacher. He was the 
poet of conscience, and the still, small voice speaks 
from his pages, trumpet-toned. But the voice is 



' EXHIBITION OF 1878. 253 

not uniform. Now it takes on a sad melody, woo- 
ing to repentance ; oftener it loses itself in the 
thunder of denunciation ; it is relentless justice, 
pronouncing the damning sentence ; it is remorse. 
Macbeth's murderous dagger has struck deeper 
than the heart of Duncan. It has cut through and 
through the armor which "fate and metaphysical 
aid " have cast about the cowardly heart of the as- 
sassin. A wounded and awakening conscience 
gives the lie to the shallow pretext of fatalism. 
Pent up remorse rushes upon its victim, and guilty 
thoughts make for themselves material habitations. 
To Macbeth's frightened senses, the bowlings of the 
storm are human tones : 

' ' Methought I heard a voice cry, ' Sleep no more ! 
Macbetli does murder sleep ' — the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care. 
Still it cried ' Sleep no more ! ' to all the house ; 
' Glamis hath murder' d sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more.' " 

It is the remorse of a noble nature, overborne by 
seeming fatality. Enveloped in the shadow of 
destiny, inflamed with prophecies of future great- 
ness, urged on by the taunts and entreaties of Lady 
Macbeth, his faltering purpose yields. YetShaks- 
peare does not teach fatalism, else remorse had 
never held sway in the heart of Macbeth, or raised 
before him the ghost of murdered Banquo. And for 
the woman who waits in the castle hall, that dag- 



254 T^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

ger thrust has swept from the future, hope and 
peace. The deed is done ; ambition has snatched 
his crown, and her strained nerves relax before the 
blow which has quickened the coarser nature of her 
husband into unwonted courage. True, in her 
waking hours, she rises superior to guilty terrors. 
But when the body sleeps, and the will of adamant 
has wandered from its stony citadel, then con- 
science rules. She dies at last, with the dreadful 
spectre of remorse at her side, closing up the vista 
of hope and blighting her farewell to earth with a 
curse. 

Richard III., unlike Macbeth, could look his 
guilt squarely in the face and say, '^ I know thee 
and I love thee ;" more diabolical than human, his 
intellect Titanic, his heart Satanic. No pretext 
there of destiny ; no shrinking from the conscious- 
ness of crime. A being to laugh at sympathy and 
scorn pity ; his soul the throne of a relentless 
demon, urging him on to continued crime. But 
the voice that speaks in both man and devil, still 
lives within the soul of Richard, and on the dread- 
ful night at Bosworth Field, the arch-fiend yields 
to its enchantment. Then the ghosts of murdered 
kinsmen come thronging back into remembrance. 
Unerring memory brings the accusations and con- 
science sits in judgment. Before that awful 
tribunal Richard makes confession : 



EXHIBITION OF 1878. 255 

' ' My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree. 
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree. 
All several sins, are used in each degree. 
Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty ! guilty !" 

Joseph Cook, borrowing from Victor Hugo, calls 
remorse ''the laughter of the soul at itself," and in 
Richard's midnight dream, we hear a sardonic out- 
burst of self-hatred and self-scorn. It is the echo 
of a fiendish chorus chanting a derisive requiem 
over a fallen soul. 

Theologians speak of the * ' prophetic office of 
conscience." It is a merciful glance into the future ; 
the beneficence of conscience, foreshadowing, by a 
single pang, the slow, wasting, lengthening days of 
remorse. Macbeth's air-drawn dagger is a symbol 
of coming woe. Hamlet, just stepping over the 
brink of time, starts back. Conscience holds be- 
fore him the vision of the future : 

' ' To die, to sleep : 
To sleep ! perchance to dream !" 

Like a weird, fitful light, the supernatural broods 
over Shakspeare's delineations of remorse. The 
horror within will not image itself in earthly ob- 
jects, but steps beyond the grave to meet its fearful 
embodiment. Remorse in Shakspeare is distinc- 
tively imaginative. Conscience has left the domain 
of emotion and holds its seat in the imagination. 



256 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

Thomas Hood, the quaint, kindly poet and 
philanthropist, has doffed his jester's cap and as- 
sumed an aspect of unwonted sternness. When he 
tells the "Dream of Eugene Aram," he clothes him- 
self in Shakspeare's garb. Here again, as in Shaks- 
peare, a diseased imagination calls up visions of 
empty air to picture the terrible thoughts within. 
The nervous structure is shattered. The criminal 
can not rest. The spectre of his victim is ever at 
his side. The white, dead face lives in his mem- 
ory ; the sightless eyes pierce through and through 
his soul, and the dying moan of the murdered man 
sounds like thunder in his ears : 

' ' The universal air 
Seems lit with ghastly flame : 
Ten thousand, thousand dreadful eyes 
Are looking down in blame." 

Milton, the Puritan poet, has taken a loftier 
flight than Shakspeare and Hood. Refusing, in the 
proud individuality of his genius, to picture human 
remorse, he has listened to the mightier throbbings 
of Satan's heart, and told of the pangs which angels 
feel who fall. 

Satan's soul is a scarred battle-field, and evil has 
won in the strife. But confusion reigns supreme. 
Holier instincts, though conquered, still send out 
their feeble protest. Satan's remorse is not repent- 
ance, neither is it pure remorse. Faith is gone, 
but hope remains ; sorrow is there, but it is sorrow 



EXHIBITION OF 1878. 257 

for conquered pride ; sorrow without repentance, 
yet lighted up with a yearning for repentance. 
But pride once humbled, still rules and will not 
yield to sweeter-voiced humility. The arch-rebel 
can not rest, yet knows not where to flee. His 
burning thoughts encompass him with a wall of 
impassible flame : 

' ' WhicTi way shall I fly, 
Infinite wrath and infinite despair ? 
Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ; 
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep. 
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, 
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven." 

The remorse of Satan akin to repentance, veils 
the repulsiveneSs of his nature. He is a devil still, 
but with something of the angel left in him. 

Coleridge was a dreamer. To him the world of 
imagination revealed its wonders. He has given us 
two pictures of remorse. His formal attempt to 
delineate in tragedy an angered conscience is a fail- 
ure. But when he drifted away on dreamland's 
sea, fancy brought before him the glittering eye 
of the ancient Mariner. Infused with the weird 
mysticism of its author, glowing with the lustre of 
supernaturalism, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner 
sheds forth a ghostly light. Remorse in Coleridge, 
though purely imxaginative, is yet psychological and 
moral. The Christian philosopher has taken up the 
poet's pen. Remorse is insanity. The agony of 



258 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

soul which he deHneatesis not only a sketch of retrib- 
utive justice, it is a speculative fancy. 

Remorse in Byron's poetry is clearly subjective. 
The types of misery seen in Manfred, in Childe 
Harold, in all his characters, are not mere fanciful 
pictures. They represent the living, suffering real- 
ity — Byron. Early sin had recoiled into his heart, 
there to be the never decaying germ of agony. 
The delicate fibre of his nature was a matchless 
target for the barbed shafts of conscience. There 
is a pathos in Byron's remorse — the pathos of real- 
ity. Before him ever walked a tireless phantom. 
Now the victim yields to his power and the story 
of Manfred speaks his agony ; now he would thrust 
him from his sight, and the tales of Venice seem 
to tell of a light and joyous heart. But the dread- 
ful undertone of self-accusation sends forth its 
hideous echo and the song of merriment sinks into 
voiceless woe. 

' * There is no tragedy comparable with the tragedy 
of Byron's own heart," says Castelar. That joyous 
spirit, which, with a vein of sadness, made Hood's 
life a melodrama, never smiled on Byron's gloomier 
lot. Remorse with him was the condition of all 
thought ; a mood deep-rooted in his nature. Not, 
as in Shakspeare, in dreams and visions of the 
night, does the haunting voice of memory ring 
through his soul, but in the light of busy day. 
Byron's remorse is beyond repentance. An in- 



EXHIBITION OF 1878. 259 

pregnable pride has made Manfred contemn the 
holy words of hope. The sorcerer dies, his last 
words a defiance of the power of the spirit, an 
enunciation of a retributive creed : 

' ' What I have done is done ; I bear within 
A torture which could nothing gain from them. 
The mind, which is immortal, makes itself 
Requital for its good or evil thoughts." 

Terribly has Byron symbolized remorse : 

"The mind that broods o'er guilty woes 
Is like the scorpion, girt with fire ; 
In circle narrowing as it goes 
The flames around their captive close. 
So writhes the mind remorse has riven, 
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, 
Darkness above, despair beneath, 
Around it flame, within it death," 



EXHIBITION OF 1879. 

"The Romance of Lord Beaconsfield's Career," 
Theodore Hand Allen, 
George Fenner Crumby. 

" Shakspeare, the Poet of Conscience," 

Edward Sandford Burgess. 

" Bryant and Poe: the Lessons of Their Lives and Works," 
George Earl Dunham. 

"What Poetry owes to a Belief in a Future Life," 
James Walter Morey. 

"The Heroism of General Jackson," 

Robert Schell Rudd. 

" Labor and Invention." 



THE HEROISM OF GENERAL JACKSON. 



BY ROBERT S. RUDD. 



GREAT names recall great deeds. History in 
the popular mind is individual names, iso- 
lated biographies rather than philosophic record of 
consecutive events. Each epoch has its hero ; 
a man in whom centres the conscience and purpose 
of the generation. In 1776 it was Washington, 
epitome of the personal virtues, resolute courage, 
and conservative patriotism which inspired his time. 
In i860 it was Lincoln, incarnation of that spirit ; 
moderate yet firm, he made the war the vindication 
of an indissoluble Union. Midway between these 



EXHIBITION OF iSyg. 



201 



typical men stands another, whose name is 
synonymous with two pivotal events in American 
history. The one the consummation of the work of 
Washington ; the other the commencement of the 
labor which Lincoln was to complete ; the Battle 
of New Orleans and nullification — these are the 
events ; Andrew Jackson their hero. 

For two years the War of 1812 had dragged its 
weary length. Though harassed by her war with 
France, England had constantly defeated our land 
forces. The Federalists, opposed to the war from 
the first, grew open in its denunciation. Our 
Treasury was empty ; our credit impaired ; public 
sentiment divided when the startling news arrived 
that Napoleon had been defeated by the allied 
armies ; and England, now free, had determined to 
crush America in one grand decisive campaign. 

Soon British fleets hovered off our coasts. The 
national Capitol was burned, and the Southern 
coast paralyzed vv^ith apprehension. Men-of-war 
floated in the Gulf of Mexico, and many a heart 
v/as chilled when the nev/s came North, "New 
Orleans is threatened." New Orleans, the lungs of 
the West and South, was to be wrested from us. 
Such was the condition of affairs when Andrew 
Jackson entered the Crescent City. Coming from 
a guerrilla VN^arfare with discontented Indians, his 
mettle had been tested without proving his fitness 
for the impending crisis. He came to a city but 



262 THE CLA RK PRIZE BOOK. 

recoiilly made part of the United States by }Mir- 
chase. Its mixed iin-Ainerican popnlatic>n was dis- 
trustful of itself, aud of doubtful loyalty to a Union 
which had boui^ht its allei;"iauee. It \\as in a state 
o{ intense exeiteinent. No steps IkuUhh^u taken to 
fortify the city, vulnerable by land and river ; no 
discipline prevailed aniouj;- the raw reeruits ; all 
was confusion, suspicion, anarchy. A leader was 
needed, a Cromwell, a \\'arwiek, a \\'illiani of 
Orange ; and he had come, lie had ccnne worn 
with disease and fatigue, more tit for the hospital 
than the field, but with the mien and will of a 
master. His iron spirit triumphed over disease 
and trampled upon difficulties. 

From the hour of his arrival the city underwent 
transformation. As the touch of Midas turned the 
merest dross to gold, the presence of Andrew 
Jackson evoked energy and conlidence from the 
nerveless and despairing citizens, and soldiers 
learned to lo^ e that gaunt, taciturn man, clad in a 
shabby blue coat and leather cap. Night and day 
he inspected the outworks, disciplined the troops, 
strengthened the fortifications. Watchful, sleep- 
less, his pale jaundiced face, rigid with unremitting 
pain, won sympathy and created confidence. 

A month passes ; the eighth of January arrives. 
The British have determined to force the American 
lines and march to the city. Contrast the contest- 
ants. On the one side a land force of 15,000 men 



■ EXHIBITION OF iSyg. 263 

fully armed ; perfectly disciplined ; eager for battle ; 
confident of victory. This regiment is fresh from 
the fields of the Peninsula ; that marched with vic- 
torious Wellington into France ; v/hilo these faces 
were recently illumined by the glare of our burning 
Capitol. Opposed to them is a motley, untrained, 
ill-equipped force of 3,500 men — backwoodsmen 
from Tennessee and Kentucky. Their courage is 
unquestioned ; their ignorance of warfare complete. 
But they have a leader who knows no defeat. His 
invincible will is a bulwark which his veteran an- 
tagonists have never met. * ' Desperate courage 
makes one a majority," and it was this spirit which 
prompted Jackson's reply when the legislature de- 
manded, ' ' What will you do if defeated .?" ' ' Do .?" 
he roared, in indignant voice, "do, if I thought the 
hair of my head knew, I'd cut it off. Go, tell your 
honorable body that if disaster overtakes me, and 
the fate of war drives me from my lines to the city, 
they may expect a warm session." 

Early on the eighth the English are in motion. A 
dense fog shrouds the field. Steadily the enemy 
advance. They are within two hundred yards of 
the extemporized breastworks. There is silence, 
intense and awful. Suddenly comes a discharge of 
musketry. An instant more and the whole line is 
ablaze with deadly fire. The unerring aim of the 
western hunters is irresitible. The compact lines 
of English grenadiers are mown to the earth. 



264 T^HE CLARK PRIZE ROOK. 

Column after ooluinu of tho achanciui;" onomv is 
smitten with irretrievable ruin. More quickly than 
voice can tell, n\ore quickly than eye can see, the 
battle is over. In a short half hour the iield is a 
strugi^ling, writhing, ghastly mass. Twenty-live 
hundred English have fallen, while within the 
breastworks but iifteen are not rejoicing in the glo- 
rious victory. New Orlea.ns is saved. The war is 
over. Tlie decisive blow is gi\en, and the struggle, 
begun at Lexington, is ended at New Orleans. 

Throughout the country Jackson was hailed as a 
hero. And was he not .^ History or romance has 
no spectacle more heroic than this at New 
Orleans. A man, past his prime, stricken with dis- 
ease, with irresistible determination, transformed 
ill-disciplined, unexperienced levies into an army ; 
and drove back, w^ith terrible slaughter, the proud- 
est American expedition old England ever equipped. 
It was not great generalship, perhaps, but it was 
fertilit}' of resource, personal magnetism, inspiring 
courage, invincible will, vitalized by pure patriot- 
ism, and its reward was a victory so complete, so 
overwhelming, that history has hardly its parallel. 
This was the heroism of Andrew Jackson at New- 
Orleans. 

Let us turn to Jackson's civil victories to find a 
kindred heroism. Twenty years have passed since 
New Orleans. Twice the popular voice has sum- 
moned Andrew Jackson to the presidency. In 



EXHIBITION OF rSjcj. 265 

politics as in war, his policy has been aggressive ; 
his administration distinctively personal and char- 
acteristic. * ' Old Hickory " has become the rally- 
ing cry of one party, the abomination of the other. 
On the threshold of his second term, a new issue is 
thrust into American politics. They call it nulli- 
fication. The logic of the doctrine is that the Fed- 
eral Union is a league of independent States ; a 
cheap contrivance of mock nationality ; a rope of 
sand. Nullification ! it means secession, disunion, 
treason. Nullification ! it means an internecine 
war, a mountain of debts, a desolate land, a million 
mourning houses, and a decade of bitter sectionism. 
For several years nullification had been vaguely 
hinted as a possible solution of the tariff question. 
Jackson's views were well known. They were epit- 
omized in the toast of 1830, "the Union, it must 
be preserved." Although the doctrine had been 
announced and discussed, the action of South 
Carolina was a surprise. It was in November, 
1832, that a body composed of the Haynes, the 
Pinckneys, the Butlers, unanimously passed the noto- 
rious ordinance of nullification. The news reached 
Washington in December. The president was con- 
fronted by the solemn declaration that if the tariff 
is enforced "the people of South Carolina hold 
themselves absolved from all connection with the 
Union, and will organize a separate government." 
Close upon the State's proclamation followed its 



266 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

governor's ifiery appeal, calling upon all true Caro- 
linians to resist the Federal power to the last. 
Andrew Jackson loved the Union. His love was 
no sudden growth ; no spasmodic sentiment, but a 
conviction deep rooted in his very being. This at- 
tack upon the Constitution he had sworn to main- 
tain, aroused again the latent energy, and colossal 
will that had triumphed at New Orleans. His con- 
ception of duty was instinctive ; his decision in- 
stantaneous. Although his implacable enemy, 
Calhoun, was the head and front of the offending 
body, Jackson rose above political prejudice and 
.personal resentment. His proclamation was con- 
ceived in a spirit of the sublimest patriotism, sup- 
ported by unanswerable logic. With bold, resolute 
hand, he swept aside the cunning sophistries of 
Calhoun and Hayne. He refuted all their argu- 
ments, and forstalled many not advanced until i860. 
He appealed to every sentiment of honor, sectional 
pride and local prejudice ; and his words ring with 
sincerity and truth. '*I adjure you," he wrote» 
' * as you love the cause of freedom ; as you prize 
the peace of your country and your own fair fame, 
retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of 
your State the disorganizing edict, bid the conven- 
tion reassemble and promulgate the expression of 
your will to remain in the path, which alone can 
conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell 
them that compared with disunion all other evils 



EXHIBITION OF iSjg. 267 

are light. Declare that you will never take the 
field unless the banner of your country floats over 
you ; that 3^ou will not be stigmatized when dead, 
and scorned while living, as the authors of the first" 
attack upon the Constitution. Its destroyers you 
cannot be. You may disturb its peace, or cloud its 
reputation for stability ; but its tranquility will re- 
turn, and the stain upon the national character will 
be transferred to remain an eternal blot upon the 
memory of South Carolina." No compromise was 
suggested ; no alternative considered. South Caro- 
lina must submit, and she did. 

Recall the administration of James Buchanan. 
What a contrast. Where in '32 we find courage, 
decision, patriotism, we find in '60 timidity, vacil- 
lation and intrigue. Jackson's whole proclamation 
breathes indomitable will. It is the same spirit 
that conquered the Creeks and Seminoles ; that 
destroyed the centralization of the United States 
Bank ; that in 181 5 repulsed a nation, and in 1832 
controlled a State. It was not great statesmanship, 
perhaps, but it was heroic determination, and it 
won the day. 

Thus in peace and war did the heroism of Andrew 
Jackson manifest itself. Not intellectually great ; 
not mentally the superior of his contemporaries ; 
he possessed qualities which distinguished him even 
in the day of Webster, Calhoun and Clay. One 
word, familiar to the great senatorial triumvirate, 



268 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

was unkno^vn to Jackson, compromise. Reared in 
povert}', he early learned the salutar}^ lesson of 
self-reliance. Whether as the lawyer, soldier, sena- 
tor or president, we find him the same simple, in- 
dependent, honorable man. ' ' I care not for 
clamor," he once said, "I do what I think right," 
and his life is the proof. He was ambitious ; but 
his ambition rested upon virtue. He was prejudiced 
and partisan ; but it was the prejudice of a strong 
mind, and his partisanship rose above party ser- 
vility. He was an autocrat ; but he loved the com- 
mon people with deep, passionate devotion. He 
was full of faults, but they were the faults of 
strength. He was of the people and for the people ; 
he was their hero. 



EXHIBITION OF 1880. 

" Garrison and Wilberf orce, " 

Mattoon Monroe Curtis. 
" The Race Problem in the United States," 

Charles Alexander Gardiner. 
"The Siege of Antwerp," 

William Morton Griffith, 

Seth Grosvenor Heacock. 
" 'The Highest Good,' as Taught by English Poets," 

Philip Adam Laing. 
" Shakspeare's Two Delineations of Mark Antony," 

Walter Barnard Winchell. 
" England and the First and Last Napoleon." 



THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES. 



BY CHARLES A. GARDINER. 



RACE conflict began in the early days of man, 
and, rolling its destructive waves down the 
centuries, swept away the most powerful nations 
of the globe. From the desolated plains of Asia, 
from the battle-fields of Europe, a cry of anguish has 
pierced the centuries, imploring man to stay this 
deadly scourge. The wise and good of antiquity 
turned their hopes to the future. In some mystic, 
golden isle, some distant land beyond the sea, they 
beheld the races of men mingling together in one 
common brotherhood. 



270 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

In this republic are already gathered the most 
diverse elements of national life. The Indian, 
proud and haughty ; the negro, dragged from his 
native land ; the Chinese, swarming our western 
seaboard ; all merged into one nationality and 
swayed by the man preeminent, the intelligent, 
civilized European. Four distinct races, differing 
in character, color and origin. How these conflict- 
ing elements can be reconciled, hov/ they may en- 
joy equal rights in society and government, such are 
the vast issues of the race problem in America. 

A few centuries ago, the European race first touch- 
ed these shores. It spread timidly along the Atlantic 
seaboard, then combining its forces, the homogene- 
ous elements uniting under one banner, led on by 
the energetic, aggressive Anglo-Saxon, it broke over 
the Alleghenies, rolled in mighty inundation through 
the western prairies, leaped the Rocky Mountains, 
and was checked only at the Golden Gate of San 
Francisco. Standing to-day the supreme power in 
this land, it owes a political, social and ethical duty 
to the inferior races on this continent. 

Three hundred years ago began our Indian war- 
fare. A proud, independent people, filled with all 
the instincts of humanity, refused to bow before 
European aggression. They asserted their rights, 
they loved the home of their fathers, they would 
die rather than submit. Then rang out the cry of 
' ' extermination. " It sounded through the colonies, 



EXHIBITION OF 1880. 2 7 1 

was caught up by the young repubhc and floated 
from every outpost on the western frontier. Exter- 
mination is the logical result of the persistent policy 
of our national government. See the Indian flee- 
ing from his New England home ; see him making 
a last, desperate stand on the Ohio ; see him in 
Georgia pleading for the graves of his ancestors ; 
see him hurled beyond the Mississippi ; everywhere, 
robbed and murdered, denied his rights, and thrust 
from the pale of civilization. Not content with such 
outrages, Congress declared the Indian tribe no 
longer an independent power. Four hundred exist- 
ing treaties were deliberately broken. To-day the 
tribe has no legal autonomy. The Indian is denied 
the courts of justice, denied citizenship, denied the 
rights of property. He is a being, neither alien nor 
citizen ; he is a mere child, a ward, a pure anomaly 
in the American government. How can this nation 
decry Indian treachery, when it has broken every 
obligation and violated every treaty } How can it 
point to a Custer murder, when it goads the In- 
dian to desperation and leaves no redress but ap- 
peal to arms } The Indian problem can be solved 
only on principles of humanity and justice. Call 
him a doomed race, inferior in intellect and ability, 
still recognize him as a human being, surround him 
with civilization, educate and Christianize him, and 
as soon as he demands a place in our body politic, 
grant him all the privileges of an American citizen. 



272 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



Throw open the courts and the Indian will appeal 
to law, rather than arms ; grant him land in sever- 
alty, and he will acquire property. Replace forts 
with schools, and the army with teachers ; let our 
policy be education, and not annihilation, and the 
Indian will abandon his barbarous life and become 
a civilized man. Let citizenship be the highest goal 
of attainment. To force the ballot to-day upon all 
classes of Indians is unjust and impolitic. Let it 
be the ultimate and not the initial point, the end and 
not the means of his progress. Has he ever refused 
civilization or rejected humane treatment I Tell 
me if Revolutionary history does not shine with glori- 
ous deeds of Indian allies. Tell me if this valley of 
the Oriskany be not dotted with monuments to In- 
dian fidelity. Not possible to civilize the Indian ! 
Is not the Indian Territory, rich in agriculture, filled 
with schools and colleges, with seminaries and 
churches, is not this sufficient proof of Indian abil- 
ity } He can be civilized, he can be educated ; thus 
qualified, he will become a citizen, superior to thou- 
sands who swarm upon us from the Old World. 
Our national honor and duty to God, the claims 
of a broad. Christian humanity, all constrain us to 
preserve these last remnants of a once powerful 
people. 

Far different is the condition of the negro race in 
America. Imported as a slave, and tolerated as a 
serf; emancipated, enfrachised, with all his poverty 



EXHIBITION OF 1880. 273 

and ignorance, he has been brought face to face 
with the great problems of national life. What 
has been the result ? His progress is marvelous. 
Opposed by prejudice the most bitter and organized, 
he has acquired property, established schools, en- 
acted laws, and asserted his power in the national 
Congress. In fifteen years, he has risen to a higher 
level, than white serfs of Europe have attained in 
centuries. Shall the negro be disfranchised .'* No ! 
For six generations accustomed to society and gov- 
ernment, he was better qualified to cast his first 
ballot than are the most advanced Indians of to- 
day. If a mistake to enfranchise him, what justice 
in correcting the error, after he has passed his 
political tutelage } Rather let every energy of in- 
dividual and state be exercised in founding schools 
and spreading knowledge. The immediate result 
will be the increased intelligence and morality of a 
million illiterate voters. It will dispel the vast 
cloud of darkness that hangs like a pall over the 
Southern States. Education and emigration, a re- 
peated ''exodus" under the softening influence of 
time, will become prime factors in solving the diffi- 
culties of the negro race. 

Chinese immigration marks an epoch in human 
history. Two great streams of migration, starting 
four thousand years ago, one flowing eastward, the 
other westward, after belting the globe, now meet 
and mingle. What shall be the future relations of 



2 74 '^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

these two powers, the oldest and the youngest in 
the family of nations ? Shall America prohibit 
Chinese immigration ? The present bearings of this 
question are economic, rather than political. The 
Chinese are decried as a vicious factor in the 
community. What danger do we fear t Is it 
Chinese conservatism } America can receive no 
greater blessing. Let this nation deal justly. So 
long as we admit the dregs of Europe ; so long as 
we welcome the thousands and hundreds of thou- 
sands, who are pressing through the seaboard towns 
of the Atlantic, swelling our cities and filling up our 
great interior ; so long as we welcome the Russian 
and nihilism, the German and socialism, the French 
and communism; so long as we maintain our present 
immigration laws, just so long must we permit 
Chinese immigration. 

Consider now the practical phases of the race 
problem. A fundamental tenet of this nation de- 
clares that all men are created equal. Never was a 
proposition less true. All men are not created 
equal. Yet Christianity, permeating every stratum 
of society, lifting the lower classes from their degra- 
dation, is guiding man to that perfect life where 
equality reigns supreme. America is one of God's 
great agents in this movement. By a war that 
rocked this continent, we have established equal 
rights before the law. But mere legal rights do not 
always ensure political equality ; and without politi- 



EXHIBITION OF 1880. 275 

cal equality race antagonism will never cease on 
this continent. The negro is to-day under the ban 
of political servitude, suffering indignities more ab- 
ject than when he bore the shackles of slavery. 
How long will this continue 1 How long shall we 
brand the Indian and Chinaman as aliens } Until 
the dominant race conquers its caste, pride ; and 
annihilates race prejudice. 

This problem involves assimilation. But is 
assimilation possible } What was ancient Greece, 
that flourished in the morning of the world ; that 
built Athens, with its golden temples ; that crowned 
the Acropolis with grace and beauty ; that dotted 
the land with shrine and monument ; that blos- 
somed into the most marvelous civilization of an- 
tiquity } Was not Greece the home of countless 
tribes t Were not the warriors of Rome, issuing 
from the Imperial City and conquering the world, 
were not they representatives of every nationality } 
What gave England constitutional liberty ; what 
makes her a broad, liberal, Christian power.'* The 
union of distinct races. 

Away with the false plea that political equality 
requires social amalgamation. Let the sons of 
Black Hawk and Tecumseh, still wrap about them 
the stoic mantle of their ancestors; let the negro re- 
tain his emotional nature, and the Chinaman his 
Asiatic frugality ; let each race preserve its peculiar 
characteristics ; but let Christianity lift them all into 



276 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

a community of faith ; let an American ballot 
create in them a national patriotism ; then will 
"these very characteristics become enduring elements 
of national stability. 

Ancient rivals in glory, the negro and the Euro- 
pean ; the only rivals to-day, the European and 
Mongolian ; what shall prevent the political har- 
mony and equality of these three races ? What shall 
prevent their union in one common government ? 

Every nation has a moral mission to perform. 
Our national duty is twofold. To inferior races, 
we owe the blessings of civilization, the comforts of 
society ; above all, the pure gospel of Christianity. 
To ourselves, our first duty is preservation. If, as 
the years roll by, the waves of immigration threaten 
to sink our ship of state ; if on this continent Ger- 
mans are arrayed against French, English against 
Irish, negroes against Chinamen ; then our first 
duty will be to shut down the flood gates, and stop 
foreign immigration. 

May that necessity never be realized ; may Amer- 
ica never be closed to the world. As the millions 
of Europe gaze from their crowded shores ; as the 
masses of Asia cast longing glances over the sea, 
may they ever behold this land, the home of freedom, 
the refuge of all tribes and races ; may it be the 
shrine of justice, its people speaking one language, 
reverencing one law, worshiping one God, forever 
America, the beacon light of humanity. 



EXHIBITION OF 1881. 

" The Mormons and the United States Government," 
Robert Wallace Hughes, 
Herbert Peter White. 

"What the Nineteenth Century owes John Wycliffe," 
Francis Wayland Joslyn. 

"The Defects and Merits of our Public School System," 
Lee Sanders Pratt. 

' ' Savanarola and Wolsey, ' ' 

Clinton Scollard. 

"The Surrender of Cornwallis," 

Alonzo Jay Whiteman. 

"The Historic Results of Glory and Duty." 



THE MORMONS AND THE UNITED STATES GOVERN- 
MENT. 



BY ROBERT W. HUGHES. 



MORMONISM is the anomaly of the age ; a 
child of ignorance in the midst of intelligence ; 
a despotism permitted by a democracy ; an absolute 
hierarchy in a nation that recognizes no particular 
faith ; the most abject slavery in a land whose very 
air makes men free. 

Mormonism was organized in the Empire State 
on the 4th of April, 1830. It began with six mem- 
bers. Converts rapidly increased. Its antagonism 
to existing social and religious institutions, forced 



278 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

it continually westward. Finally, beyond the 
boundaries of civilization, it found a refuge in the 
valley of the Great Salt Lake. The few thousand 
fugitives \vho, in the summer of 1847, settled 
there, have increased until they now number a 
hundred and fifty thousand, while an equal num- 
ber are scattered among foreign nations, and their 
missionaries are in every part of the world. 

The civil power of the church of the Latter-day 
Saints has kept pace with its numerical growth. 
Founded by a worthless character, with a stolen 
manuscript in his hand, and a lie on his lips, it 
has successfully opposed our institutions, nullified 
our laws, openly steeped itself in crime, publicly 
declared its treason to our government, is repre- 
sented in Congress, and boasts that the nation is 
pow^erless to prevent its rule. 

The doctrines of Mormonism, which are directly 
inimical to the United States government, are 
polygamy, with its attendant evils ; atonement 
for offences against the church by the destruction 
of the offender ; and the political rule of the Mor- 
mon priesthood. 

The Christian home is the foundation of all civil- 
ized society. Upon its perfection depends the 
loyalty of the citizen, and the character of the man. 
The Mormons know no home. The sacred ordi- 
nance of marriage is made a license for immorality. 
Man becomes a brute, woman a slave. All the 



EXHIBITION OF 1881. 



279 



elevating and ennobling influences of the Christian 
family are destroyed. 

The deliberate taking of a human life, is, under 
our laws, a capital offence. For thirty years the 
Mormons have deluged Utah with innocent blood. 
The Mountain Meadow and Morrisite massacres, 
the atrocities confessed by Hickman, and the mur- 
der of Robinson, Yates, Hatch, Payson, and Bow- 
man are terrible illustrations of the crimes perpe- 
trated by these Latter-day Saints. Could the 
plains, the mountain sides and canons, whose 

" Red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, 
And echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers, ' Death,' " 

tell of the scenes which they have witnessed, we 
would have a record of horrors, which, for cold- 
blooded cruelty, not even that of the Inquisition 
could rival. 

Behind polygamy and the doctrine of blood- 
atonement stands the system of which they are 
the fruits — the Mormon priesthood. This is the 
prolific cause of Utah's evils. The political 
rule of this arbitrary, despotic, and absolute 
hierarchy, is the curse of the territory, a 
danger which even threatens our national life. 
Ever since the Mormons have had a name, this 
priesthood has ruled them. At times its power has 
been modified or abridged ; but ever it has risen 
again to wider sway and more absolute dictation. 
In word and deed this priesthood is the declared 



2 8o THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

enemy of our government. Hatred and treason 
against the United States are preached from its 
pulpits and practiced by its pews. Says the most 
learned Mormon, Orson Pratt, ''Any people at- 
tempting to govern themselves by laws of their own 
making, and by officers of their own appointing, 
are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God. " 
And Mormonism claims to be the kingdom of God 
on earth. Said Brigham Young, " Our ecclesias- 
tical government is the government of heaven, and 
incorporates all governments in earth and hell. 
It is the fountain, the mainspring, the source of all 
light, power, and government that ever did or ever 
will exist." John Taylor, the successor of Brigham 
Young, at the Mormon church conference, held in 
Salt Lake City, January 4th, 1880, declared, "Po- 
lygamy is a divine institution. It has been handed 
down directly from God. The United States can 
not abolish it. No nation on earth can prevent it, 
nor all the nations of the earth combined. I defy 
the United States. I will obey God. " He asked 
those who assented to his words to raise their 
hands. Immediately every hand in the vast throng 
that filled the tabernacle was lifted. 

Polygamy, murder, treason — these are the crimes 
of which Mormonism stands arraigned. These 
offences against humanity, government, and God, 
are the ordinances through which the Latter-day 
Saints claim the right of expressing and practicing 



EXHIBITION OF 1881. 281 

their religious faith. Evil, in any form, is the enemy 
of a free government. The crime of Mormonism 
is doubly insidious and hostile when, with shame- 
less blasphemy, it is called the fulfilment of divine 
commands. 

Another evil of Mormonism is suffrage. The 
Saints are largely of foreign birth, but marriage and 
not length of residence, proper age, or fealty to the 
government is the requisite of suffrage. Thus the 
ballots of an ignorant and fanatical people are cast 
as their priesthood wills, thereby strengthening and 
extending its dangerous power. 

Through its cooperative mercantile institution, 
Mormonism influences, by large patronage, the 
leading business men at our great centres of trade. 
Its agents are in every State. They are members 
of great monied corporations in America and Eu- 
rope. George Q. Cannon, a polygamist and * ' First 
Counselor " of the Mormon president, has, for years, 
been Utah's delegate to Congress. 

It is now thirty-four years since Brigham Young 
and his followers settled in the valley of the Great 
Salt Lake. It was said that Mormonism bore 
within itself the elements of its destruction. But a 
few ill-clad, half-starved, fanatical fugitives grew 
to a numerous, wealthy, and dangerous people. 
Civilization was to purify the country of this pest. 
But civilization, with its railroads, telegraphs, and 
all its wonderful amalgamating power, has reached 
19 



282 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

and surrounded Utah ; yet Mormonism remains, in 
thought and action, more isolated than before. At 
the death of the ' ' prophet " the church would cer- 
tainly lose its power and fall in pieces. Brigham 
Young died. Younger and abler leaders took his 
place ; and never was Mormonism more united, 
powerful, and aggressive than now. It is true, the 
Mormons number, at most, but a hundred and fifty 
thousand of the nation's fifty millions. But their 
missionaries are in every land, offering to the igno- 
rant and destitute a home and plenty. Thousands 
of these deluded prosel3^tes are arriving annually at 
Salt Lake City to become the tools of the Mormon 
church. Already it controls Utah, has the balance 
of power in Arizona and Idaho, and is rapidly 
peopling Washington, Montana, Wyoming, New 
Mexico, and Colorado. At the last election George 
Q. Cannon, by a brief order, elected the man whom 
he wished for member of Congress from Idaho. 
Let the Mormons alone, and, in another score of 
years, they will control nearly the whole region 
west of the Rocky Mountains, more absolutely than 
they now control Utah. None but Mormons could 
live under this despotism ; and nothing less than a 
civil war, more terrible and bloody than the Re- 
bellion, would restore this vast western empire to 
the government of the Republic. 

Is the nation defenceless against the pernicious 
aggressions of Mormonism '^. Must we remain in 



EXHIBITION OF 1881. 283 

helpless inactivity while all that we hold most dear 
and sacred is violated and supplanted by this mon- 
ster of barbarism ? No. The remedies are in our 
hands. Non-interference has resulted from no ig- 
norance of facts, no want of proof, no lack of 
power. No question of law, no doubtful clause of 
the Constitution, no doctrine of State rights, 
presents an obstacle to prompt, decisive action. 

The law of 1862 makes polygamy a crime. The 
Supreme Court of the United States has decided 
that the law is strictly constitutional. Our Con- 
stitution guarantees to every State and Territory 
a republican form of government. Experience has 
proved that this persistent, malignant evil will yield 
only to an inexorable remedy. The decisive step 
is to supplant the political rule of the priesthood. 
This may be done, either through a commission, as 
suggested by ex-President Hayes, or by denying the 
right to vote, hold office, and sit on juries, to those 
who practice, or uphold any unlawful doctrine of 
the Mormon church. Statesmen of great wisdom 
and discernment, and invested with large discre- 
tionary power, should be placed in authority. Polyg- 
amy must be suppressed. The great obstacle has 
been the difficulty in obtaining such proof of plural 
marriages as the law requires. The ceremony is 
performed in secret. Witnesses are bound by 
oaths which even apostate Mormons dare not vio- 
late. Let Congress make the fact of living together 



284 '^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

as husband and wife sufficient evidence, and this 
obstacle is removed. Men and women already liv- 
ing in polygamy must separate. Indemnity against 
punishment should be granted to those who at once 
comply. The polygamous wives and their children 
must not be deprived of former support. The 
children must be legitimized. Personal and property 
rights must be carefully protected, and the least 
possible suffering fall upon those who have sinned 
through ignorance. Rigorous punishment should 
be inflicted upon all new or persistent offenders. 

Let decisive, unwavering action be taken, and 
Utah's evils will disappear. If assured of protec- 
tion, many Mormons would gladly aid in the re- 
form. While the great body of the people doubt- 
less are sincere, the leaders know that Mormonism 
is a fraud. Large numbers of both sexes, among 
the youth, have begun to breathe the air of a purer 
civilization. Opinions from the society and press 
of the non-Mormon world, are waking them to a 
sense of the degradation and shame in which they 
live. 

*'Utah is not Turkey or one of the Barbary 
States." Above it waves the American flag. Into 
it, from every side, is wafted the atmosphere of in- 
telligence and freedom. Now is the time to act. 
Utah must soon become a State. She cannot be 
admitted as a hierarchai despotism. President 
Garfield is in favor of determined measures. Let 



EXHIBITION OF 1881. 285 

Congress atone for past neglect by giving him 
prompt, efficient aid. 

Our Constitution must be respected ; our laws 
enforced ; and their rigor never relaxed until 
polygamy, and the political rule of the Mormon 
church, are utterly, and forever, destroyed. Then, 
and not till then, will the United States govern- 
ment have fulfilled the duty which it owes to the 
nation, to humanity, and to God. 



EXHIBITION OF 1882. 

"Russia's Problem," 

Frederick Lincoln Dewey. 
"Nelson and Farragut," 

Anthony Harrison Evans. 
' ' The Weakness and Strength of the Constitution of the 
United States," 

Henry Orlando Jones, 

Calvin Noyes Kendall. 
"The True Place of Great Corporations in a Representa- 
tive Government," 

WORTHINGTON COGSWELL MiNER. 

'• Shakspeare's Estimate of Greatness and Goodness," 

Herbert Huse Parsons. 
' ' Fate and Providence in Literature. 



NELSON AND FARRAGUT. 



BY ANTHONY H. EVANS. 



IT was the year 1798. Napoleon was sweeping 
everything before him. Already had he con- 
quered Italy, and, crossing the Tyrol, compelled Aus- 
tria to make peace. To the east lie the extensive 
commerce and power of England. The land of 
the Pharaohs becomes the object of his ambition. 
Landing with his veterans at Alexandria, he cap- 
tures it ; and in a few days wins the famous Bat- 
tle of the Pyramids. The gates of Cairo lie open 
to the conqueror ; Napoleon is master of Egypt. 



EXHIBITION OF 1882. 287 

The din of battle had scarcely died away when 
England's brave admiral appeared at the mouth of 
the Nile. Here begins his part in the great drama 
— that drama whose closing scenes shall tell of an 
exiled Napoleon and of a peaceful Europe. Before 
him lay the French fleet. Instantly he grasps the 
situation and promptly orders an attack. Fierce 
and bitter the conflict ; complete and decisive the 
victory. Like an electric spark, the news flashes 
over Europe. Nations vie with each other in do- 
ing him honor. Well they might ; for he had 
struck a blow which shook the power of France, 
checked her most successful general, and fired the 
courage of the Continental armies. He had reached 
the pinnacle of a brilliant career. He had become 
the idol of his country and the terror of his ene- 
mies. What an eventful life ! At twelve, enter- 
ing the king's service. At fourteen, a midshipman, 
braving the climate of the East Indies. At twenty, 
commander of a brig, and, before he is twenty-one, 
all the honors of the service in his reach. Sum- 
moned to the Mediterranean at the close of the 
French Revolution, he saves Corsica, takes the 
island of Elba, aids in the destruction of the 
Spanish fleet off St. Vincent, and finally over- 
shadows all by his memorable victory over the 
French. 

Remarkably similar was the life of the heroic 
American. Like Nelson he was orphaned at an 



2 88 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

early age, and thrown upon his own resources. 
With a mind naturally observant, with a devotion 
to duty untiring, with a spirit resolute and manly, 
forty years of ceaseless activity had peculiarly fitted 
him for his great mission. 

On the morning of the twelfth of April the rebels 
fired upon Fort Sumpter. Immediately Lincoln 
calls for troops. Farragut hears that call, and, 
with breathless anxiety, awaits Virginia's answer. 
*' God forbid, " says he, "I should raise my hand 
against the South." At last his adopted State se- 
cedes. Will he, too, desert the government t Ah, 
no ! With that stanch patriotism, firmness of 
character, and decisive promptness so typical of the 
man, he expresses his intention of ' * sticking to the 
old flag." 

The events of '6i proved disastrous to the Union 
army. A substantial victory must be won. The 
hope of the North must be raised ; the strength of 
the South weakened. How shall it be done } 
Who will do it } New Orleans must be captured 
— New Orleans, the emporium of the South, the 
portal of supplies to the army. Farragut is to be 
the hero. Appearing in the Mississippi in the 
spring of '62, he bends every energy to the task. 
For five long days the mortars boom, but seem- 
ingly with no effect, upon the forts on either side of 
the river. Impatient for the conflict, he deter- 
mines to run by them. At two o'clock on the morn- 



EXHIBITION OF 1882. 289 

ing of the twenty-fourth the signal is given, and 
the anchors are weighed. Proudly the flagship, 
with its gallant commander, falls into line and 
wends its way up the river. Passing the obstruc- 
tions, he runs the forts, conquers the rebel fleet, 
steams up to New Orleans, compels its surrender, 
and leaves the American flag floating over the city. 
What the battle of the Nile was to Nelson, New 
Orleans was to Farragut. Both were actuated by 
the same motive and animated by the same spirit. 
Worshipers at the same shrine, duty was the key- 
note of their lives. Not like the meteor which 
flashes through the sky and then vanishes, but like 
the north polestar, it was an ever true and faith- 
ful guide. To die at their posts and at peace with 
their God, was to garner life's richest harvest. It 
was the patriotism of Leonidas, sacrificing his life 
for Grecian independence ; the inspiration of John 
Huss, battling against the Roman church ; the long 
and patient suffering of Washington during that cold 
and cheerless winter at Valley Forge. It was 
thought crystallized into manhood ; bravery im- 
mortalized ; principle made Godlike. Their un- 
flinching devotion to duty can be best illustrated 
by the crowning acts in their lives — the battle of 
Trafalgar and the battle of Mobile Bay. 

Early in the year 1801 France was at peace; 
but her avaricious monarch could not rest secure 
while England ruled the sea. He succeeds in unit- 



2go 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



ing Russia, Sweden and Denmark to overthrow her 
supremacy. But his hopes are baffled. Nelson, 
saihng into the harbor of Copenhagen, frustrates 
their plans by crushing the naval power of Den- 
mark. Still the emperor is not content. He plans 
an invasion. The French fleet is to protect his 
transports in the Channel. The hero of the Nile is 
again on the alert, gives chase, and, after pursuing 
them up and down the seas, blockades them off the 
coast of Spain. Like an eagle watching its prey, 
he now waits his opportunity. The fatal morning 
comes. The flagship leads the way. The hearts 
of the sailors are all aglow. Suddenly there comes 
from the Victory a signal, ' ' England expects every 
man to do his duty." 

* ' Aye, the throb of no battery ever has stirred 
The world's mighty heart like some stout Eno^lish word, 
Wherein a brave utterance, sandaled and shod. 
Has marched down the ages for freedom and God." 

In a moment the gallant Victory is in the thickest 
of the fight, dealing broadcast her deadly blows. 
Look ! She's breaking through the enemy's lines. 
Alas for her brave commander ! Little thought he 
that he was opening the door upon whose thresh- 
old he should lay his life. He falls in the heat of 
the conflict. Wounded and bleeding they bear him 
away, and gently lay him down to die. Like sweet 
music comes the victorious cheers of his comrades ; 
the last guns boom out a mournful requiem ; and 



EXHIBITION OF 1882. 



291 



with a fervent *' Thank God, I have done my duty," 
the soul of the brave Nelson goes home. 

August fourth, 1864, finds Farragut before the 
forts guarding the entrance to Mobile Bay. Al- 
ready, through his energy and skill, New Orleans 
had been captured, Vicksburg surrendered. Fort 
Hudson capitulated, and the Mississippi opened. 
At half past five in the morning the order to fall 
into line is given and answered. The cheery voices 
of the sailors are hushed into painful stillness. 
Firmly the men stand at their guns eagerly waiting 
for action. Moments seem ages. Suddenly there 
comes over the sea the booming of guns. At seven 
o'clock the battle is raging. The scene becomes 
sublime ; while over the rattle and roar are heard 
the shouts from the flagship as she drives her 
broadsides into the rebel batteries. Now she is 
within the range of the enemy's gunboats. The 
leading ship suddenly stops and reverses steam. 
The vessels in the rear press forward. Confusion 
follows and disaster seems imminent. Where is 
the man for the emergency t There, lashed to the 
maintop of the Hartford. Quick as flash he sees 
the danger, passes the Brooklyn, assumes the head 
of the line and leads the fleet to victory. The dif- 
ficulty is overcome. The ships resume their order, 
and with terrible cannonade soon silence the rebel 
batteries. The hope of the Confederates now cen- 
tres upon the gunboats, but alas for their trust ! 
The white flag appears at the turret of the rebel 



292 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



ram Tennessee, and as the sun goes down, the bat- 
tle of Mobile Bay passes into history. 

As the painter delights to portray the well-de- 
veloped and symmetrical form, so the historian 
loves to dwell upon the lives and deeds of illus- 
trious men. It is neither fame nor honor that 
makes the world's heroes, but action inspired by a 
lofty sense of duty. No two men ever accom- 
plished more in their spheres than Nelson and Far- 
ragut. As commanders they were prompt, deci- 
sive ; the one more daring and dashing, the other 
more deliberate and careful. As men, they were 
types of gentleness, kindness, and sturdy manhood ; 
the life of the one, marred by licentiousness, that of 
the other pure and holy. As patriots, both stand 
out on the page of history with a record unsullied, 
with their grand missions accomplished, with their 
trusts nobly fulfilled ; the one fighting for British 
supremacy, inspired by the cheers of a united peo- 
ple and the hearty sympathy of his kindred ; the 
other abandoning home, friends, and State, with 
duty as his soul's inspiration, and God as his guide, 
that the blest flag of our Union might once more 
wave in triumph over every foot of American soil. 

As a reward for valorous deeds, pagan Rome dei- 
fied her heroes. Christian England and America, 
with a sentiment no less loyal, with a gratitude none 
the less enduring, and v/ith a memory as unswerv- 
ing, crown Nelson and Farragut with ihe laurel and 
the immortelle. ^ 



SUBJECTS OF 1884. 

"The State and the Convict." 

•' The Services of William T. Sherman in the Civil War." 
"The Tragedy of Thought, and the Tragedy of Passion in 
Shakspeare." 

"Four Scenes Illustrative of the Good and the Evil in Bene- 
dict Arnold's Career." 

"Napoleon Bonaparte and Martin Luther as -Representative 

Forces in History." 
" Byron and the Greek Revolution of 1821." 



EXHIBITION OF 1885. 

"The Power of a State as Determined by Manufacture and 
by Commerce," 

Udelle Bartlett. 
" The Battle of Monmouth," 

Wager Bradford. 
"Hildebrand and Cromwell," 

Samuel Potter Burrill. 
" Shakspeare's Representations of the Human Will," 

William Addison Lathrop. 
" The Railway in American Politics," 

Emory Wood Ruggles. 
"The Mission of Thomas Carlyle," 

Irving Francis Wood. 



THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. 



BY wager BRADFORD. 



ON a raw November morning, not many months 
ago, the people of New Jersey gathered to 
dedicate a monument to their heroic dead. That 
granite shaft commemorates one of the most stub- 
born of revolutionary battles. It tells of a peaceful 
Sabbath turned to a day of wrath, of God's sweet 
sunshine dimmed by the smoke of war, of patriot- 
ism battling for a principle, of sublime self-sacrifice, 
even unto death. Upon its site, where now the 
busy life of Monmouth ebbs and flows, Washington 



EXHIBITION OF i88s. 303 

withstood the shock of battle and v/rested victory 
from seeming defeat. 

Go back to the twenty-seventh of June, seven- 
teen seventy-eight, and stand at evening, beneath 
the hntel of Monmouth's ancient courthouse ; in the 
waning twihght, an army's tents show white against 
the earth, and the rude voices of a camp disturb the 
quiet of the summer night. Five miles away the 
scene repeats itself ; another wayworn army halts 
and sleeps. 

The British under Clinton had evacuated Phila- 
delphia, and were retreating through New Jersey. 
For ten days the army had dragged its serpentine 
length northward, and for ten days, Washington, 
like a gathering storm, had hung upon its flank. On 
the eve of Saturday, the twenty-seventh, the British 
reach Monmouth. On the Sabbath morning that 
follows, the pent-up fury of the tempest breaks. 

Weary of pursuit, Washington determined to 
force a battle with the reluctant foe. Lee was or- 
dered to advance at daybreak, fall on the British 
rear, and bring the chase to bay. Washington, 
after the first cannonade, would hasten forward 
with the main army and bring on a general engage- 
ment. 

The mists of early morning still hovered over 
wood and field, when Lee and the gallant Wayne 
rode forward to reconnoitre. Before them stretched 
the plain of Monmouth, and, lo ! upon its ample 



304 T^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

green was marshaled all the "pomp and circum- 
stance of glorious war." To the stern music of the 
fife and drum that royal host moved on ; squadron 
after squadron swept into line, with bayonets flash- 
ing in sunlight and banners tossed by the fitful 
morning breeze. 

Upon this stately quarry Wayne let loose the 
dogs of war, and soon the baying of their iron 
throats told Washington the battle was begun. 
Thus far his plans were realized, and all seemed 
well. But Mars is fickle, like his sister Fortune. 
As Lee advanced to Wayne's support, the entire 
British rear wheeled and met him face to face. The 
aid-de-camp of the king of Poland had little relish 
for such odds. As the grenadiers advanced, his faith 
in patriot courage wavered, and fairly quailing, he 
ordered a retreat. 

Washington had dismounted and was watching 
his columns as they swept along the road. The 
heat was stifling, but he knev/ it not ; with eager 
ear he listened to the welcome roar of battle. It 
rose and swelled, and then grew faint and fainter, 
until an ominous silence settled on the sultry air. 
Anxiously he waited. What could it mean, this 
fatal quiet } Suddenly a horseman dashing up ex- 
claimed : "The Continentals are retreating!" 
It seemed incredible ; there had been but little 
firing ; Lee had sent no messenger. Would a vet- 
eran general pour five thousand troops upon the re- 
serve without a word of warning } 



EXHIBITION OF 1883. 305 

A dark suspicion flashed through the mind of 
Washington. Lee had vehemently opposed his 
plans. Could this retreat be premeditated } His 
face was awful in its wrath. Springing to his sad- 
dle he swept like a whirlwind up the narrow road. 
Before his eyes there rose the past, the present, aye, 
and the future ! Was it for this that Valley Forge had 
been endured ; that Steuben, through winter cold 
and summer heat had drilled his half-clad troops ; 
that Franklin had won the aid of France, and he 
himself suffered the venomous malice of the cabal .'* 
Defeat meant ruin. Had that ruin come } The 
passion ever slumbering in his mighty soul flung 
back defiance in the teeth of fate. From Lee's de- 
feat his hand should wrest a victory. His anger 
kindled as he rode. Reining his foaming horse at 
last, with face suffused and blue eyes flashing fire 
and voice that stung his hearer like a blow : ' * For 
God's sake. General Lee," he cried, " what means 
this ill-timed prudence T Staggered for a moment, 
Lee at length replied : * ' These Continentals can 
not face the British troops." ''They can, and they 
shall !" thundered Washington. Turning, he 
spurred among the retreating columns, and by his 
simple presence brought them to a halt. ' ' Long 
live Washington !" burst from the army's lips, and 
as the shout of welcome rang along the lines, the 
hero knew the day might yet be saved. As by 
magic doubt gave way to confidence, confusion 



3o6 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

changed to order. Spurring in front of Osgood and 
Stewart's regiments, he said : ' ' On you I depend 
to check this pursuit." Ramsay, in the vanguard 
with the artillery, he bade defend his position to 
the last. Throughout the lines the determined 
presence and decisive words of the leader roused 
new courage. Order once restored, the generous 
impulses of Washington's great soul triumphed 
above suspicion. Riding back to Lee, and point- 
ing to the steady columns he had marshaled, he 
said : ' ' Sir, will you command these troops ?" 
' ' Yes, " was the answer, ' ' nor will I be the first to 
leave the field." 

Once more the battle opened. With front un- 
yielding as the brows of fate the British advance. 
Foot by foot they drive the patriots back ; yet, 
still with lines unbroken, the raw militia face the 
grenadiers. In the front ranks Ramsay mans his 
guns, nobly defending the trust imposed upon him. 
But now, the mad horses of the royal guards are 
dashed in headlong charge upon that stubborn line. 
Before the shock it wavers, trembles, would have 
broken, but at that instant Washington hurls for- 
ward the reserve. On the left and right the guns 
of Stirling and of Knox pour in their fire, while on 
the centre ' ' Mad Anthony Wayne " falls like a 
thunderbolt. The spirit of their glorious leader is 
in every patriot heart ; each soldier is a hero ; nay, 
in that stern hour, woman forgot the gentle ties of 
peace, and all untrained took up the art of war. 



EXHIBITION OF iSSj. 307 

Moll Pitcher, bringing water for the thirsty gun- 
ners, saw her husband fall beside his piece. "I 
will avenge his death," she cried, and springing to 
the gun she snatched the lan3^ard, and with her 
woman's hand drove home the charge. All through 
the action ' ' Captain Molly " fought that gun. 
Could man retreat where woman held her ground } 
Before the iron hail of Knox and Stirling, and the 
furious charge of Wayne, the flower of England's 
soldiery breaks and flees. In vain Monckton rallies 
his troopers ; in vain the desperate charge, the 
splendid stand, the heroic death. The battle of 
Monmouth is lost, and won. 

The shadows lengthen on the eastern hills, 
the lurid sun sets in a sky of blood, and pitying 
darkness steals across the plain to wrap her sable 
shroud about the dead. Washington on the mor- 
row would have renewed the struggle, but at mid- 
night the British stole away so softly that the pa- 
triot sentinel heard no footfall. 

Monmouth was peculiarly a national victory. 
There had been many battles of the North or 
South, but here were represented all the ' ' Old 
Thirteen." Sons of New England, troopers from the 
Carolinas, Virginia's chivalry, patriots from every 
colony fought side by side against the common 
foe. On this field, too, were the main armies of 
both belligerents, led in person by their commanders 
in chief. The moral effects of such a victory can 
not be overestimated. From that battle-field 



3o8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

stretched * 'mystic chords of memory" to the hearth- 
stones all over the land. A common victory knit 
more closely the bonds of a common interest, in- 
spired the national courage and proved the strength 
of unity. The battle of Monmouth did not, like 
Hastings, or Sedan, decide the fate of a nation. 
It was rather negative in its results. The Conway 
cabal had sought to injure Washington before the 
people ; Monmouth enshrined him in their very 
hearts ; Franklin had j ust secured the aid of France ; 
Monmouth strengthened and sealed the French 
alliance ; Brandywine and Valley Forge had cast 
a shadow over the nation ; the British seemed in- 
vincible, the struggle hopeless ; at Monmouth the 
shadow was lifted and Steuben's discipline shattered 
forever the boasted superiority of the English. 

A hundred years have strangely changed the plain 
of Monmouth. The sluggish village has become 
the busy town. The whistle of the locomotive now 
sounds the reveille, and the din of trade succeeds 
the rattle of musketry. Time has dealt kindly 
with the wounds of v/ar, and the once crimsoned 
plain smiles again with the green of its meadows 
and the russet gold of the harvest. There is no 
hint of murderous conflict, save in the shaft that 
marks the battle-place. But though the heroes of 
that bygone day have long been silent, and the 
cannon's roar is hushed among the fair New Jersey 
hills, yet while we keep our freedom, there needs 
no granite to bid Americans remember Monmouth, 



EXHIBITION OF 1886. 

*'Tlie Faust of the Legend and the Faust of Goethe," 

Edward Fitch. 
* Louis XL and Charles the Bold," 

William Horace Hotchkiss. 
' Saxon and Slav in Asia," 

James Beveridge Lee, 

Stephen Sicard. 
*' Creed and Character," 

John Sergeant Niles. 
' ' Legislation as a Means of Suppressing Vice, ' ' 

Harry Brainard Tolles. 
'Bismarck and German Unity." 



SAXON AND SLAV IN ASIA. 



BY JAMES BEVERIDGE LEE. 



TWO types of European civilization divide the 
attention of thinking men. Both are powerful 
and aggressive. Each is supported by a monarchy 
w^hose towering strength has long been the wonder 
of mankind. 

In the north and east of Europe, midway between 
the perpetual Arctic snows, and the perpetual sum- 
mer of the tropics, Russia stretches her vast ex- 
panse. In the west, washed by the German Ocean 
and the Atlantic, and sundered from the Continent, 
lies Britain. The national character of the one is 



3IO THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

harsh and forced. She is haughty, dictatorial, cruel, 
and her slightest breath bodes terror to the map of 
Europe. The character of the other is the out- 
growth of her inherent vitality. Bold, philan- 
thropic, progressive, everything it touches throbs 
with new activity. 

These two civilizations sprang from the convul- 
sive throes of disorganized tribal life of the ninth 
century. To the one the Angle gave the name, the 
Jute a Christianity, the Saxon a royal dynasty, and 
the England of Alfred the Great began her national 
career. To the other the tenacious will of the 
Muscovite bequeathed a unity, gave it the religion 
and dynasty of the Slav, and the Russian empire 
rose on the banks of the Dnieper. Subsequent 
history of the Saxon and the Slav, is the record of 
national progress. To-day they are mighty em- 
pires, rival ''stars" upon the theatre of the world. 

Saxon spirit early felt cramped in its island 
home. Destiny forbade a hold upon the Continent, 
and baffled all designs upon America, save in the 
icy north. She turns her eyes to the riches of the 
East. The India Company surrenders its charter 
to the crown. The sunlight of Christianity breaks 
through the darkness of Mohammed and of Brahm, 
and the genius of western civilization, kindles new 
reflections among the crumbling splendors of the 
Orient. The trading post expands to a mighty de- 
pendency. Rebellion follows, ^ but, so far from 



EXHIBIT ION OF 1886. 



311 



checking, adds to the fame of British arms. Ex- 
tension is inevitable. The Punjab is annexed, and 
the whole Indus valley turns its treasures into the 
English mart. The red territorial line now leaps 
from peak to peak among the Himalayan snows, 
and sweeps along the Soleiman summits ; while 
the shadow of British power falls far beyond into 
the valleys of central Asia. 

To the Slav, bound up in his icy fastnesses, the 
land of summer has always been a Utopia. As the 
Goths and Vandals poured down and overwhelmed 
Rome, so, since the days of Peter the Great, have 
the Muscovite legions swept southward in their re- 
sistless forays. This historic desire for conquest, 
modified and organized by civilization, exhibits itself 
to-day in Russia's eagerness for territorial aggran- 
dizement. In Europe she has swallowed Courland 
and Livonia, Finland, Poland and the Crimea, and 
is gazing, with covetous eye, beyond the Danube 
to the Golden Horn, longing for the time when the 
cross shall supplant the crescent upon the minarets 
of St. Sophia. 

In Asia, waterless steppes and arid deserts long 
offered insurmountable barriers to Slavonic exten- 
sion. Even as late as the eighteenth century, the 
Ural and the Irtish marked its southern limit. In 
1863 the blue line ran from the Issik Kul, along the 
Chu, to the Aral Sea. It hardly paused here. The 
Ak-Kum sands are passed, and a new boundary is 



312 1HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

marked by a chain of Russian forts along the Jax- 
artes. The Kizil Kum desert offers no resistance 
to the aggression, and the Cossack of the Don 
plants the Russian standard in the sacred waters of 
the Oxus. Meanwhile a movement in the west, 
which had been held in check for half a century at 
the Caucasus, prevails. Georgia is conquered ; the 
Caspian Sea made a Russian lake ; and the two 
lines of conquest move forward in concert. Khiva 
is subjugated, Bokhara absorbed, and the city of 
Merv becomes, in '84, the strategic outpost. 

Falling down from the snow-covered steeps of 
the Afghan Mountains are innumerable rivulets 
which unite to form Murghab river. As it sweeps 
along in its steady current, it spreads civilization 
in its path. Populous cities and thriving towns 
crowd its banks. When it reaches Merv, it sepa- 
rates into a multitude of mouths, sinks from view, 
and is lost among the sands of the desert. For 
years England regarded this great tide of Russian 
conquest, colonization and civilization as another 
Murghab, which, when it should reach Merv and 
the Kara Kum would scatter and disappear. Re- 
peatedly, warning voices were raised to dispel this 
illusion, but the optimistic legislators of the Thames 
scoffed at the thought of danger on the Indian 
frontier. 

In 1838 England, for a brief moment, awoke 
from her lethargy. The Russo-Persian attack upon 



EXHIBITION OF 1886. 3 1 3 

Herat alarmed her. A British army crossed the 
Indus, surmounted the Cashmere Mountains, entered 
Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass, blew open the 
gates of Ghuznee, compelled the submission of 
Cabul and Candahar, renewed the loyalty of Herat, 
and restored the honor and prestige of the British 
name in central Asia. Had England retained the 
position she then occupied, all would have been 
well. British India would have been surrounded 
upon the north by a cordon of independent states ; 
Russian advance would have been checked at Merv, 
and all vexatious complications avoided. The re- 
trenchment of shortsighted Liberals rendered this 
impossible, and the recall of British troops in 
'80 was the signal for Russian advance. While 
all eyes are intently watching the Soudan, the 
Afghan frontier is crossed, Sarakhs falls, Penjdeh 
yields to the invader, and Russian videttes stand 
within sight of Herat. England is amazed. She 
springs to her feet in alarm. All is bustle and 
anxiety in Downing street. Maps of Afghanistan 
are eagerly sought. Liberal and Conservative 
unite in studying the crisis. The Conservative 
calls loudly for war. England's diplomatic corres- 
pondence is couched in imperious terms. Stocks 
fall in the London Exchange. In the Paris Bourse 
there is a like depression. The public clamors for 
war. All England is ablaze. Indian troops hurry 
to the front. British reserves embark for India. 
21 



314 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



The fleet in the Thames stands ready to sail. All 
ears are listening for news from the czar, and the 
world holds its breath. But correspondence from 
the Neva is pacific, and exhibts no eagerness for 
an Asiatic battle-ground. The ardor of the Con- 
servative cools, and the Liberal cause is strength- 
ened. Peace measures finally prevail. The ad- 
vance to Penjdeh is explained, and Saxon and Slav, 
throwing down their arms, leave the Boundary 
Commission to adjust their difficulties. 

The lull of a year in the turmoil of Asiatic poli- 
tics has given to the world ample time in which to 
review the details of the Anglo-Russian question. 
Geographical names, a few months ago unknow^n, 
except in diplomatic circles, have now a significance 
to the common ear. Vague and unjust ideas of 
Russian government have been dispelled by facts. 
Absolutism and autocracy have been stripped of 
their imaginary terrors, and Russia is seen to be 
what she really is. The movement in Asia is found 
to be the triumph of law over chaos, of civilization 
over barbarism. 

While the world is ready to allow the claims of 
Russia as a civilizing power, it cannot blind its 
eyes to the inevitable outcome of the Anglo-Rus- 
sian question. When we see the troops of the 
czar moving along the same route by which Alex- 
ander the Great led his forces to the conquest of 
Hindostan ; when we remember the ominous 



EXHIBITION OF 1886. 3 1 5 

words of Napoleon, uttered in the silence of St. 
Helena, foretelling the Russian as the ruler of India, 
and when we hear the Muscovite war-cry, ' ' On to 
Herat!" '*On to Herat!" we realize that we are 
standing in the portentous shadows of coming events. 
It is idle to say that Russia has no designs upon India. 
The present patched up peace upon the Afghan 
borders is but a preparation for the final onset. 
When all is ready, England must yield. Herat is not 
invincible, nor is the Indian frontier impassable. Let 
Russia control Herat, let her gain possession of this 
fortress, the acknowledged ' ' key to India, " and 
further resistance will be fruitless. The Muscovite 
will not then resist the fascination. The Cossack, 
sweeping through the Bolan Pass, will conquer the 
sepoy. British India will become Russian, and 
the ' ' white padishah of the Neva " will make the 
capital of his Eastern empire at Calcutta. 



EXHIBITION OF 1887. 

" The Strength and Weakness of Culture," 

Sherman William Browne, 
Charles Buckingham Cole. 

"Lessing," 

Henry James Hemmens, 
Albert Beardslee Judson. 

"The Mexican Fiasco of Napoleon III.," 

John Putnam Montross. 

" The Huguenot in America," 

Frank Huson Robson. 

" The Use of the Imagination in the Perception of Truth." 

" Legislation as a Remedy for Industrial Evil." 



THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF CULTURE. 



BY CHARLES B. COLE. 



M 



ANKIND has always been on the outlook for a 
universal panacea. Once it was the ' ' Philoso- 
pher's Stone ;" then that wonderful ** Elixir of Life," 
which was to cure ' ' all the ills that flesh is heir 
to." 

To-day there is a new discover}/ ; a new claimant 
to the world's admiration and gratitude appears on 
the scene. He announces that he has found the one 
thing needful to perfect modern civilization, to re- 
deem us from its groveling m.at^rialism and to raise 



EXHIBITION OF 1887. 3 1 7 

us to the fullest degree of development of which 
the race is capable. 

Therefore are many claims made for this new 
element that is to rule the world. Science and lit- 
erature are already its bondsmen. The throne of 
religion must be declared vacant ; the world must 
cry, ' ' The king is dead ; long live the king, " as 
culture, with imperial state, enthrones itself — the 
ruling force of modern life. 

Matthew Arnold, this modern prophet of culture, 
clearly seeing its strength, but blind to its weak- 
ness, has magnified immensely its just claim to 
thoughtful consideration. And yet, there must be 
some force in this nev/ doctrine, for the preacher of 
the gospel of culture has won many an earnest and 
talented disciple. 

Let one of these define his creed, and he would 
say, * ' Culture is the study of perfection ; its mot- 
toes, 'to render an intelligent being yet more intel- 
ligent,' and 'to make reason and the will of God 
prevail ;' its ultimate rule, ' let your whole nature 
expand up to the very utmost of which it is capable 
in every direction.' This perfection is not an ex- 
ternal good, but an internal condition, — a growing 
and a becoming, not a resting and a having ; in 
short, it is * a harmonious expansion of all the 
powers of the human soul.' " 

Arnold finds two marked' tendencies in human 
life, that toward action and that toward thought ; 



3i8 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

as the one is the ideal of the Jew, and the other of 
the Greek, he calls the former Hebraism, the latter 
Hellenism. ' ' The force that encourages us to 
stand stanch and fast by the rule and ground 
that we have, is Hebraism, the force which encour- 
ages us to go back upon this rule, and to try the very 
ground upon which we appear to stand, is Hellen- 
ism." 

The one represents energy, duty, earnestness, 
self-control, the obligation to work ; the other 
ardent sense, intelligence, the indomitable impulse 
to know. The world seems to adapt first one of 
these tendencies, then the other. As long as Greek 
ideals ruled the ancient world, Hellenism was the 
dominant power. With the introduction of Chris- 
tianity, however, its reign closed, and, for a thou- 
sand years, the world followed the Hebrew ideal. 
The Renaissance was the revival of Hellenism, Pu- 
ritanism the reappearance of Hebraism. 

From the days of Cromwell and Milton, the 
world has been developing the moral side of its na- 
ture at the expense of the intellectual. Now 
Arnold sa3^s, is the time for less of fire and strength, 
the Hebrew levers, and for more of ' ' sweetness and 
light," the means by which the Hellenist would 
move the world. 

But, neither Hellenism nor Hebraism is the law 
of human development ; each is a contribution to 
it ; if either is omitted the result must lack com- 



EXHIBITION OF 18S7. 3 1 g 

pleteness. When both elements combine, each re- 
ceiving its due share of honor, they will make the 
man of the future an ideal being, perfect in all 
things, in so far as humanity can be perfect. 

Culture is both strong and weak, strong in that 
it shows us our weakness, weak in that it would 
deprive us of our strength. 

Culture and the ideal it places before us, shows 
us the insufficiency, the narrowness, the incom- 
pleteness of modern life. It says plainly that the 
man who is content with his daily life, feels no im- 
pulse toward a higher, nobler law of living, is not 
a man, but a mere machine. Culture, by demand- 
ing from him a complete development of all the 
powers with v/hich he has been endowed, would 
place before him such a lofty ideal that, in striving 
to attain it, he would rise by the stepping-stone of 
a dead self to a better, purer life. Herein lies the 
great strength of culture. It leads to a higher per- 
sonal life. It promises to perfect mankind by per- 
fecting individuals. Its progress will be almost im- 
perceptible. As the mighty ocean, under a silent, 
unseen influence, rises higher and higher along its 
shores, so the tide of human endeavor and attain- 
ment, under the influence of culture, would gain 
heights hitherto undreamed of. Such is the glorious 
promise of culture ; will it, can it keep it .'* 

Will human nature, under the influence of cul- 
ture alone, become better } Do we find the most 



320 



IHE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



cultivated men exhibiting the most virtue ? Is it 
not a fact that the most thorough cuUure is con- 
sistent with the most thorough egotism ? 

Paradox it may seem, but fact it is, that the im- 
mense advantages which culture has conferred, are 
largely neutralized, in many cases outweighed, by 
the blinding influence of a subtler, deeper, more 
comprehensive selfishness, a selfishness that would 
lead culture to despise the poet who says : 

"The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
Is not to fancy what were fair in life, 
Provided it could be — but finding first 
What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means — a very different thing ! 
No abstract intellectual plan of life, 
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, 
But one, a man, who is a man and nothing more, 
May live within a world." 

The strength of culture must be supplemented by 
the moral purpose to use that strength for the good 
of mankind, or else its strength becomes its great- 
est weakness. Culture, in itself, is electricity in 
the clouds, powerful but useless ; culture, united 
with moral purpose, is electricity in the fine-drawn 
wire, the trained and obedient servant of man. 

The weakness of culture must be turned into 
strength by substituting altruism for egotism. The 
predominent self of the cultured man must disap- 
pear and in its place must reign the maxim, ' ' Do 
good to all men as ye have opportunity." 



EXHIBITION OF 1887. 321 

And yet, when the strength of culture is sup- 
plemented and its weakness turned into virility, 
even then it is powerless to advance the world; for 
this there is needed something more than the mere 
intellectual power that comes from culture. For ' ' a 
people may be very cultivated and yet very corrupt. 
A government maintains itself in permanent power, 
not by the cultivated, nor by the wealth, nor by 
the number of its subjects, nor by the extent of its 
territory, but only by the virtue which reigns in its 
subjects' hearts. But the virtue of a people will 
never rise higher than their religious faith requires. 
Virtue is the fruit of religion, and religion is its only 
root." But what if culture becomes a people's re- 
ligion } Can it take the place of Christianity } Could 
culture write a Pilgrim's Progress, a Paradise Lost, 
or a Divine Comedy 1 Can any development of the 
social, aesthetic or intellectual nature of man make 
up for a lack of moral development } Can any be- 
lief that says that morality is a part of the human 
beauty of spirit, rather than an eternal obligation, 
be substituted for the ' ' law and the prophets " .'* 
When goodness is no longer an end in itself, may 
not justice and honor be regarded as obligatory 
only in the childhood of man } Can culture's ' ' power 
not ourselves, that makes for righteousness " ever 
supplant the eternal, omnipotent Jehovah } The 
decisive "No," these questions compel, annihilates 
culture's claim to rule the advance of the world. 



322 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



And yet, while culture must give up its pretense 
to preeminence, it still remains a wonderfully pow- 
erful factor in modern life. 

Christianity and culture, as sun and satellite, as 
sovereign and subject, can do a mighty work in the 
regeneration of this uncultivated and irreligious 
world. 

In the hands of a master that can give it ethical 
principle, culture, like the iron servant of Sir Artegal, 
could make straight the way of his lord, crush all 
the hideous forms of vice and wrong with the mighty 
blows of his iron flail, banish the foul exhalations 
which, in the guise of high ideals, mislead strug- 
gling humanity ; it would bridge the ' ' Slough of 
Despond," make radiant the *' Valley of the Shad- 
ow," until at last, master and servant stand side by 
side upon the summit of the ** Delectable Moun- 
tains. " 



EXHIBITION OF 1888. 

"The Life and Death of Lavoisier," 

John Edward Everett. 

"Poetry as a Teacher of Patriotism," 

Gary Miller Jones, 
Abraham Lincoln McAdam, 
Hiram Albert Vance. 

"The New Birth of Japan," 

Albert Remington Kessinger. 

" Goethe and Carlyle," 

William Harder Squires. 

"The Rewards of Political Righteousness." 

"Bulgaria." 



POETRY AS A TEACHER OF PATRIOTISM. 



BY ABRAHAM L. MCADAM. 



AMONG the men of every age, there have been 
those who have stood preeminent as the 
moulders of human character ; who, by their teach- 
ings or by their acts, have given color to the thought, 
sentiment and life of subsequent generations. In 
every department of human activity we trace the 
ruling hand, the master mind, which has shaped for 
better or for worse, those elements, which, woven 
at the ceaseless ''loom of time," constitute the 
many-colored fabric of modern civilization. 

As a means by which this ultimate end has been 



324 '^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

attained, poetry has played no unimportant part ; 
it has been the form of the most lofty in literature, 
at once the groundwork and expression of the best 
in music and art, and the embodiment of the most 
beautiful in religion. Through this medium have 
the greatest minds sought to elevate mankind with 
their grandest conceptions ; from this, as a source, 
has been drawn the inspiration of artist and musi- 
cian, in works which are as truly poetry as were the 
ideas that suggested them. 

Apart from this mission of poetry in elevating the 
morals and refining the sensibilities, there is another 
and not less worthy end which it subserves — an 
end which poetry, as the language of intense feel- 
ing, is best able to promote — that love of place, 
principle and country, called patriotism ; that de- 
votion which prompts men to forsake all, even life, 
for fatherland ; that spirit which forms a vital prin- 
ciple in every nation worthy of the name. 

In nearly all primitive nations the bard occupied 
a place little inferior to that of the ruler himself. 
His position was unique. Reverenced and loved by 
the people, wielding a power envied by his lord and 
feared by his enemies, he maintained it solely by 
the magic influence of his art. He was a necessity; 
in war, to inspire, by thrilling battle-song, those 
hardy warriors to deeds of strength and valor ; in 
peace, to keep alive a spirit of national pride, by 
singing their past achievements, and thus inciting 



EXHIBITION OF 1888. 



l-^S 



them to lives which would insure their country's 
future greatness. 

Whence comes this power ? History and our 
consciousness prove that it springs not from the 
qualities of the poet as a man, but that it is an in- 
herent property of the art itself. Poetry speaks to 
the heart ; appeals, with its strong simplicity, to 
the loftiest sentiments of man's nature ; deals with 
his tenderest emotions, his honor, his pride, and his 
love, and points out his duty in a manner more elo- 
quent than oratory, more irresistible than logic. 
Thus is poetry eminently qualified to be the teacher 
of patriotism ; to be the instrument whereby a 
nation is infused with that spirit so fruitful in action, 
so essential to all national greatness, so productive 
of that feeling by which is conserved the true liberty 
of any people. 

In what consists the power of modern England } 
There she sits, '* mistress of arts and arms," vast 
in resource, and of broad domain ; masterful, and 
indomitable of spirit. We recall her achievements; 
her motto, ^ ' God and my right ; " her battles for 
humanity, her sword of conquest ever followed by 
the torch of enlightenment. But these are not her 
power. They are but the fruits of her spirit. Deep 
in the hearts of her citizens is that love of fireside, 
of country, and of right, joined with the devotion 
to the duty toward mankind which that love im- 
plies, implanted by the patriotic literature of five 



326 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

centuries. Fruitful of poets who touch such 
themes, she is rich in patriotism ; and rich in patriot- 
ism, she is rich in all that makes national great- 
ness. When at Trafalgar Nelson gave the order of 
the day, it was a confident appeal to that same 
generous sentiment so deeply rooted in every Brit- 
ish heart; and in that signal, ''England expects 
every man to do his duty," is seen a striking result 
of such poetic teaching. Here, from the seeds 
sown by her early bards, fostered and expanded by 
her Burns, her Moore, her Milton and her Words- 
worth, was unfolded that highest growth of a just 
and righteous patriotism, whose hardy offspring, 
transplanted this side the Atlantic, has been the 
controlling factor, the potent element in our country's 
greatness. 

Kindred to this slower growth, but not of a less 
enduring nature, is that patriotism kindled by the 
poetry of the hour. During the war of liberation, 
when the German states lay broken and bleeding 
under the might of Napoleon ; when the national 
spirit, feeble through internal despotism and lack of 
unity, was well-nigh crushed by a foreign oppressor; 
then it was that German poetry roused German 
patriotism. The singer was abroad in the land, 
and a great people, through the writings of an 
Arndt and a Koerner, awoke from that lethargy 
under which their countr}^ was fast being driven to 
destruction. Napoleon saw ; and, fearing such an 



EXHIBITION OF i88S. 327 

awakening, forced Arndt to flee, as the English, 
when, foiled by the valor of the hardy mountaineers, 
slew the ancient bards of Wales. But his attempt 
was futile ; Koerner, joining the army, continued 
the strain, and ceased not until all Germany was in 
arms, and himself had died for the cause for which 
he had sung so well. Too late, however, for 
Napoleon. Those songs had struck the keynote of 
German liberty, and touched a sentiment in the 
popular heart stronger than hatred, mightier than 
mere armies, — love for the Fatherland. This 
armed a new-found nation ; this hurled back forever 
the ''man of destiny," and rendered possible the 
formation of a state, of an empire — a united Ger- 
many, Later, when the cry '*on to Berlin" re- 
sounded through the streets of Paris, when half a 
million Frenchmen were hastening to the border, 
and the question came, 

' * — the Rhine ! the German Rhine ! 
Who guards to-day, thy stream divine ? " 

back swelled the refrain from every loyal heart, 

" Dear Fatherland, no danger thine, 
Firm stand thy sons to guard the German Rhine." 

It was Rueckert, and Arndt, and Koerner, who were 
singing that song, and the patriotism which their 
poetry had kindled avenged Jena at Sedan. 

In that poetry best calculated to inspire a sudden 
patriotism, music has always constituted an impor- 



328 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

tant feature ; for music, when it rises to the exalted 
sphere of expressing human passion, is, in itself, 
poetry. This union of the twin arts is best seen in 
the national hymn. Born in the hour of trial, its 
best examples are always a spontaneous outburst of 
high feeling. They are patriotism's most thrilling 
expression, as well as its best teachers ; and well 
indeed, was it said, ' ' Let me write the songs of a 
people, and I care not who makes their laws." 

France, in the travail of her bloody revolution, 
at the outset of those wars which shook Europe to 
its very centre, gave to the world its grandest war- 
song, the ' ' Marseillaise " ; in it is crystallized the 
patriotism of France. From the first, it took a 
deep hold upon the people, and roused them to such 
a pitch of ardent patriotism, that the mere line 
' ' Ye sons of France, awake to glory ! " sufficed to 
fill the ranks, and imbue the army with a devotion 
that rendered it well-nigh resistless ; and often, in 
the wild rush of its impassioned strains, have her 
soldiers turned the tide of battle, snatched victory 
from defeat, and covered her banners with unfading 
glory. 

On the eighth of September, 1855, the armies of 
the allies had determined to storm Sebastopol ; to 
the British was assigned the task of taking the re- 
doubt known as Redan ; while the grim Malakoff 
bade defiance to the troops of France. Slowly and 
sternly they advance to the attack ; then from the 



EXHIBITION OF 1888. 



329 



defenses a hundred cannon belch forth their iron 
hail of death ; they waver, they rally, and again fall 
back ; flesh and blood can not withstand that awful 
fire ; something must be done, and quickly. Sud- 
denly from the ranks is heard, * ' La Marseillaise ! 
give us la Marseillaise and victory ! " The air is 
struck up, ''To arms ! to arms, ye brave." Then, 
heedless of that terrible storm, seeing not, feeling 
not, on, on they rush, fired by the thrill of that in- 
spiring song, over the breach, past the cannon's 
mouth, to victory. Poetry had triumphed ; in her 
simplicity, stronger than discipline, she had pre- 
vailed when human arm was powerless. 

In the poetry of home and country we have a 
heritage of surpassing wealth. Sung by cradle and 
fireside, taught in our schools, part and parcel of 
our intellectual equipment, it is a source of national 
power and greatness. Let it be kept sacred. 
Better than moated fortress or rifled cannon, it is a 
defense and bulwark of our liberties. The poetry 
of a free people, breathing the national spirit, is 
pledge and earnest of the perpetuity of its institu- 
tions. 



22 



EXHIBITION OF 1889. 

"The Spanish Armada," 

Lincoln Christman Ackler, 

George David Miller, 

Frederick Perkins. 
"Frederick II. and Frederick III.," 

Schuyler Coe Brandt, 

Charles William Enoch Chapin. 
"The Ethics of Socialism," 

Edgar Coit Morris. 
"Africa's Debt to David Livingstone," 
"The Diplomatic Career of Benjamin Franklin." 
" The Appointing Power of the President; its Origin and 
Influence." 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 



BY FREDERICK PERKINS. 



ON a bright May morning, three hundred years 
ago, a magnificent spectacle in the harbor of 
Lisbon attracted the gaze of Christendom. The 
Invincible Armada was about to loose from its 
moorings and begin a voyage of conquest that 
would turn the course of history into new channels 
and revolutionize the world. The red cross of the 
crusade gleamed from the sails of a hundred and 
thirty ships, whose size and strength astonished the 
nations. Two thousand cannon of brass and iron, 



EXHIBITION OF i88g. 3 3 1 

the finest product of Spanish arsenals, were to make 
these vessels besoms of destruction. Thirty thousand 
seamen and soldiers, animated by the fiercest relig- 
ious enthusiasm, were embarking on a holy mission. 

What was the object of this mighty expedition } 
That fair land, coveted by the nations since the 
days when the legions of Caesar claimed her, — 
England, — " whose rocky shore beats back the en- 
vious rage of Neptune" and all other tyrannies, 
was the prize which Roman Catholic despotism 
longed to grasp. 

In 1588 England was the only Protestant power 
in the world. In the preceding thirty years, the 
reaction against the Reformation had been rapid 
and decisive. Despairing Protestantism looked to 
England in this fearful hour. Rome's pontiff, Sex- 
tus v., had been striving to remove the only barrier 
to complete papal sway. Through Mary, Queen 
of Scots, through Jesuit missionaries and now, at 
last, through Philip II., the Catholic bigot of Spain, 
he had been endeavoring to bring the island king- 
dom under his control. 

And what incentives Philip had for this mission 
of conquest ! If he could bring England under 
popish rule, the faithful, through all succeeding 
ages, would adore him scarcely less than Hilde- 
brand and St. Peter. A conquest of England 
would be a long stride towards annexing to the 
Spanish domain all the goodly places of the earth. 



332 IHE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

and of establishing a globe-encircling empire. 
Mary Stuart had been beheaded, and, therefore, 
upon Philip's arrival in England, English Catholics 
would certainly flock to his standard and English 
Protestants would fall an easy prey to Philip II., 
universal emperor. 

Such was the plot. What would be the out- 
come t Pope and king anxiously awaited the result. 
Castilian chivalry, which had given its noblest youth 
to the crusade, besought heaven for favoring winds. 
The brave Netherlands, struggling for civil and re- 
ligious liberty, besought heaven for destruction to 
Spanish power. The exiled Huguenots, recalling 
vividly the horrors of St. Bartholomew's day, 
looked eagerly on. The most unconcerned specta- 
tor of this great drama was the Queen of England, 
who hopped and skipped and wrangled over her 
money-bags as if the Spanish fleet were a dream. 

But what of the English people .'' A new life had 
stirred within them. The Renaissance had made 
the Englishman realize that he was only a little 
lower than the angels. A period of grand self- 
assertion and development had begun. Was this 
glad, awakened, reformed England to be plunged 
back into the degradation of the dark ages 1 Was 
her beloved faith to be renounced for the vicious 
dogmas of Romanism } 

The Armada was slowly but surely approaching. 
On the afternoon of July 30th the lookout men on 



EXHIBITION OF i88g. •y^'^^'^^ 

the cliffs of Devon, straining eager eyes into the 
distance, saw within the offing's hazy veils a dim 
crescent line coming up over the rim of the sea, 
always coming nearer, ever growing clearer, until 
at last the whole immense armament, stretched, an 
awful reality, before them. Then the beacons 
flashed the news through England's shires, that the 
dreaded foe was at hand. 

The foe was at hand and so were the mariners of 
England. Safely sheltered in the harbor of Ply- 
mouth, the little fleet of forty sail under Lord 
Howard was ready for action. Sir Francis Drake, 
who had more than once singed King Philip's 
beard, was there with his western privateers ; Sir 
John Hawkins, the famous buccaneer, was there 
with his strong, swift sailing vessels, built after new 
and original models. Above all there were the 
English seamen, ill paid and half starved, but lov- 
ing their country, and hating the Spaniard with all 
the intensity of their stout, warm hearts. 

During the following week of conflict in the Chan- 
nel, the Spaniard learned with bitter dismay that 
his ponderous galleons were no match for the light, 
easily-managed English vessels, nor were the slug- 
gish forces of southern luxuriousness able to cope 
with the rapid, persistent work of northern energy. 
Above the roar and din of battle the finely-hearing 
ear could distinguish the clashing of world-impor- 
tant principles. Here was the struggle between 



334 T^HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Romish absolutism and modern liberty, between 
the servile life of the past and the fresh, progressive 
spirit of the Renaissance, between ecclesiastical 
corruption and free religion. 

The winds of heaven came to aid the cause of 
freedom. The Spanish ships dipping so heavily to 
leeward, their guns were directed harmlessly above 
the English vessels, while their own huge hulks 
were exposed to the English fire. 

"And where," thought the Spanish admiral, 
' ' are the English Catholics, and when are their forces 
to join mine V He could not know that, to them, 
country vv^as more than creed, that 

' ' Papists met with English laughter, 

The Popish bans and messages malign ; 

And Papist halls, from rush to rafter, 

Echoed with Queen's men first and Pope's men after." 

Protestant and Catholic nobles and squires came 
hurrying forth in every available fishing smack and 
pinnace, bringing such inspiration to the half- 
starved English crews that ever}/ common seaman 
became an individual hero. What mattered it to 
the sailors if their drink was sour and their bread 
musty, or even if the miserable supply should fail } 
A united England was depending upon them for aid, 
and '' come the three corners of the world in arms," 
they would defend her. 

But now a crisis was approaching. Lord How- 
ard could not suffer the enemy to lie idly at anchor 



EXHIBITION OF i88g. 335 

in Calais harbor. Provisions and ammunition were 
fast failing. Act he must, and act quickly. The 
Spanish fleet must be dispersed, for a southern wind 
might any hour drive it across the narrow strait. 
About midnight on August seventh the Spanish 
watchmen saw floating down upon them with the 
tide, eight dark, mysterious objects, Suddenly they 
shot up into pyramids of flame. ' ' The fire of Ant- 
werp ! The fire of Antwerp !" rang through the 
Spanish fleet, telling that the fire-ships were ap- 
proaching. In a moment all was panic and con- 
sternation on the Armada. ' ' Cut your cables and 
fly for the open sea," was the signal from the com- 
mander's ship. The galleons fled, the ever-baffling 
wind driving them along the Flemish coast. Morn- 
ing light showed the English their opportunity, and 
nobly did they seize it. They attacked the Span- 
iards with a ferocity against which stout timbers 
and naval skill could not stand. The holds, where 
the troops were packed, became slaug^hter-pens. 
Blood flowed from their scuppers. One by one 
their guns were silenced, and, driven like shudder- 
ing herds of hunted kine, the pope's anointed band 
fled for the terrible, unknown northern seas. 

And now, a force mightier than English patriotism 
took up the work of destruction. Starvation and 
thirst made havoc among the Spanish crews. 
Storms smote the fleet with a fury against which 
stout timbers and naval skill could avail nothing. 



336 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

The crews that cleared the coast of Scotland and 
hoped to find succor among their co-religionists in 
Ireland reached that island only to perish on the 
rocks or be murdered for plunder. Toward the 
last of September there came straggling back to an 
angry king and a mourning nation, a miserable rem- 
nant of that which could now, only in terrible irony, 
be called the Invincible Armada. 

* ' The kings of the earth set themselves and the 
rulers take counsel together against the Lord and 
against His anointed, but He that sitteth in the 
heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in 
derision." 

Oh ! what rapturous outbursts of thanksgiving 
surged throughout England when she found that the 
awful danger was past, that the power was stricken 
down which had 

' ' Presumed to lay its hand upon the ark, 
Of her magnificent and awful cause." 

This collision with Spain developed in England 
a deep Protestant enthusiasm. The pope had 
proved himself to be her foe, and, henceforth, there 
was to be no Protestant party and no Catholic party, 
but they all were to be Englishmen. No nation 
was ever so completely welded together. The new 
consciousness of unified national life raised the 
people to the highest pitch of national enthusiasm. 
This joyous transport entered poetry and gave us 



EXHIBITION OF i88g. 337 

Shakspeare ; it entered philosophy, and we received 
the Novum Organum ; it entered exploration and 
colonization, and the Virginias were the result ; it 
entered religion, and behold "the isles of the sea, 
the uttermost parts of the earth, join in proclaiming 
that the Lord God of Hosts, He is God, and there 
is none like Him." 



EXHIBITION OF 1890. 

"The Touchstone of 'As You Like It' and the Fool of 
' King Lear,' " 

Charles Oliver Gray. 
"Victor Hugo, Poet and Patriot," 

Robert James Hughes, 

Walstein Root. 
"The Mihtary Career of General Philip H. Sheridan," 

Samuel Duncan Miller. 
"The New West, and its Bearing on our National Destiny," 

Delos DeWolf Smyth. 
" Individualism and the State," 

Edward Lawrence Stevens. 
" The Debt of the New World to Columbus." 



VICTOR HUGO. POET AND PATRIOT. 



BY ROBERT J. HUGHES. 



^^T IBERTY, equality, fraternity," precious in- 
L/ tertwining of poetry, patriotism and the hu- 
man heart ! Never was this noblest device more 
superbly personified than in the Poet laureate of 
the French Republic. Liberty was Victor Hugo's 
goal, equality his hope, fraternity his strength. 
Personal, independence was the basis of his politi- 
cal creed. ^ Freedom in art, in faith, in life, was 
his golden rule. 

* Barbou. 



EXHIBITION OF i8go. 339 

To the eventful and extraordinary times in which 
he was born, grew up and lived, the cast of Victor 
Hugo's genius owes much. For its praises worthily 
sung, its sorrows piously consoled, its errors de- 
plored, and its spirit interpreted, the contemporary 
history of his country is deeply indebted to him, 
but to that history his debt is greater still. Never 
could other times than his have produced that an- 
tithetic union in one master-minstrel which we be- 
hold in him — the action and the pause ; the exulta- 
tion at the clash of arms, the longings and cravings 
for repose ; all the glories, all the woes, the hopes, 
the fears, the storms and calms of those years of 
wonder — the youthhood of the nineteenth century."^ 

Victor Hugo was a most voluminous writer, and 
like the great Goethe, his period of literary produc- 
tion exceeded three-score years. ' ' He was made 
to write, to receive and to transmit impressions, as 
a river is made to flow, "t The unity v/hich is not 
to be found in his acts or his works will be found 
in his iron will. Before its terrible onset the 
bronze-mailed knights of opinionated Classicism 
were unseated, and the smiling virgin Romanti- 
cism proudly emerged to greet her fearless wooer. 

As a poet, he stood in his subtlest and most fan- 
tastic moods, close to the real forms and colors of 
nature, grouping them to secure the most bizarre 



* Stuart, t Marzials. 



340 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

and grotesque effects and glowing contrasts. Much 
of his success was due to the fact that he found in 
these a complete expression for the highly general 
and abstract thought of our time, and dwelt with 
more fondness on the instinctive than on the scien- 
tific side of poetry. 

His nature fiery, violent, yet profound, was lack- 
ing in * ' esprit, " naive and the sense of the ridicu- 
lous. Life was too serious, no pastime for him. 
He loved to penetrate into the world of abysmal 
darkness surrounding him, to give terrible expres- 
sion to the black and surging mass of vitality, mis- 
ery and crime, lurking in the backgrounds of sin- 
stained Paris. 

* * He is not the great dramatic poet of the race 
and lineage of Shakspeare,"* but an acknowledged 
master of lyric and satiric art. 

A devout philosopher, Hugo did not sacrifice at 
the altar of positivism. His poems have more of 
the pantheistic cast. He places "the divine" 
everywhere ; he sees it in nature's forces, in the 
wind, in the sea, in the stars ; it is in the little 
child, in the instincts of men, in the miseries of 
humanity, as well as in its glories ; he sees it even 
in vice, in folly, in crime. He is a respecter of all 
that is created, of all that suffers, and lives, and dies. 
The nobleness of his life, the purity of his aims, the 
spontaneous and irresistible nature of his genius, 



* Matthews. 



EXHIBITION OF i8go. 341 

his masterful command of word and rhyme, his lyric 
supremacy, all combined to make him the true 
poet, the poet's poet. With all its defects, his 
verse will endure through the after-time as a living 
force, because it is * ' broad-based upon the univer- 
sal human heart, and so eternal."^ 

Victor Hugo, with Lamartine and Lamennais, 
formed the first and firmest basis of the Republi- 
can party in France. Hugo, v/ho had contributed 
to the glory of the Napoleonic story, in obedience to 
sentiments learned at his mother's breast, roughly 
converted in the swirling 'current of events, at last 
consecrated himself as the defender of liberty and 
the republic, as the resolute antagonist of the im- 
perial restoration. Never was despotism so chas- 
tised by poetry. The tyrants of Babylon and Nine- 
veh, those idolatrous kings who raised their images 
upon altars consecrated to the true God, v>^ere not 
more cursed by the ancient prophets, than was the 
tyrant of France, by the grandest and most manly 
genius which France in this age has produced. 
From irony to invective, from the pungent epigram 
to the lyric ode, everything was employed with 
severe, implacable justice to pursue the assassin of 
the republic, torm.ented by those words of genius 
like the wandering lo phrensied by the pitiless gad- 

fly- 

The dictator could hurl his praetorian legions 
* Marzials. 



342 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



upon liberty and democracy, but must finally be 
overwhelmed by the satire, the energy, the genius 
of Victor Hugo. These immortal verses formed 
the education of a class of young men taught to 
swear undying hatred to tyranny. Tacitus and 
Juvenal wrote against the corruption of tyranny ; 
but they did not succeed like Victor Hugo in seeing 
their tyrants brought to the ground. Their gener- 
ation was not as free as the present, nor were ideas 
as powerful then as now. The chords of the 
human heart responded to Hugo's touch as in the 
century before they had answered to the eloquence 
of Rousseau. He filled with that vague inspiration 
which creates heroes and martyrs a whole genera- 
tion, which at last took to its heart that sublime 
trilogy, ' ' Liberty, democracy, and the republic ! " 
For the Latin people generally, Hugo, like Gari- 
baldi, is a typical hero. He represents fully their 
distrust of governing classes and their deep sense 
of universal right. To Hugo all P'renchmen point 
as proof that France has been the support of liberal 
and humanitarian views in the century of their birth ; 
to them he is the sign, as Renan puts it, that lib- 
eralism is the national work of France. With the 
Napoleons in her past, not to speak of Guizots and 
Veuillots, this might have been doubted ; the re- 
actions had been as potent and as long-lived as the 
progressive impulses. But with Hugo, at the end 
of the century, as Rousseau and the revolution 



EXHIBITION OF i8go. 343 

were at the beginning, liberalism is secure. With 
him the idea of modern France is completed. For 
this reason Frenchmen of all ranks and opinions, 
even those, and they were many, who distrusted 
and dreaded his utterances while he lived, gratefully 
accord him unprecedented national honors now that 
he is dead. 

That he could thus represent in his own life and 
work the place of France among the nations, and 
in a manner consolidate it, is the better part of 
Hugo's greatness. His manly virtues, — courage, for- 
titude, candid speech, and uncompromising fidelity 
to the lofty idea — all had their expression here ; and 
for the sake of these, France will overlook some 
weaknesses, the necessary attendants of his gigantic 
virtues. 

Hugo's political work added little or nothing to 
the doctrines already enunciated by the thinkers 
who had preceded him. Here no great original 
creation was possible, nor for such semi-philosophic 
work had he any talent. His mission was to re- 
fresh and recast the principles of the great revolu- 
tionary thinkers, in a time when they were hack- 
neyed and discredited, and to give them a setting 
in new and splendid forms of art and eloquence. 

Since Rousseau, what word has been spoken in 
France for animate nature which will compare with 
the ' ' Songs of the Streets and Woods ! " After 
Volney, what note so new in the revolutionary 



344 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



views of history as ' ' The Legend of the Centuries ! " 
After Voltaire, what name but Hugo ! His very 
death was a triumph for his cause. This *'demo- 
gorgon of radicals, " this inveterate enemy of priests 
and kings, did not die in obscurity, or disgrace, or 
defeat, but triumphant as a setting sun, awing every 
hostile voice to silence.* 

Victor Hugo, poet and patriot of French democ- 
racy, with soul full of high independence and patri- 
otic love of liberty, hating slavish conformity to 
empty tradition, stands in the light of all the cul- 
ture of the nineteenth century, the acknowledged 
sovereign of the muses, over all the lyric singers of 
that high-wrought land, ' ' la belle France ! " 

* Cappon. 



EXHIBITION OF 1891. 

"The Conception of Human Progress in Tennyson,' 
Samuel Hopkins Adams, 
Bayard Livingston Peck. 

"The Political Future of the Negro in the South," 
Thomas Lewis Coventry. 

" John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder," 

Duncan Campbell Lee. 

"Schiller," 

Philip Ward. 

" America's Debt to Agassiz," 

George Marmaduke Weaver. 

" Thackeray's Ideal of the Young Man." 



THE CONCEPTION OF HUMAN PROGRESS IN TENNY 

SON. 



BY BAYARD L. PECK. 



THE march of mind has ever been to the music 
of the poet's numbers. The early bards sang 
of battle's din, of heroes' deeds, of life, and love. 
Later, might of arms became less than might of 
mind, and this progress was pictured by the poet's 
pen. Fancy has gilded fact ; fact has rationalized 
fancy. The material has wedded the ideal ; and 
science and poetry go hand in hand. 

While Wordsworth predicted a common sphere to 
science and poetry ; and Goethe, Shelley, and 
23 



346 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Byron, more completely fused the two, it remained 
for Tennyson to weave truths of science and philos- 
ophy, prophetic visions of the future, and brilliant 
gems of fancy into a fabric of unrivaled beauty. 
The poets who have sung of 

' ' What the world will be 
When the years have died away," 

have differed as to paths by which human progress 
must be attained. Some have believed that the 
end must be reached by political and moral convul- 
sions ; others by peaceful development. 

Tennyson is of the latter class. Law is his watch- 
word. Law is the sun which has dispelled the 
darkness of the past, illumined the present, and 
which will bathe the future with universal radiance. 

The tragedy of life he confesses and bemoans ; 
but the lot of birth has placed him above actual 
contact with the poor and oppressed, and their suf- 
ferings and burdens are but dimly seen. The world 
is young. Law and time will work the remedy. 

Tennyson has great respect for established insti- 
tutions, especially for those of England. He has 
been truly called a "Liberal-Conservative." His 
vision of the ' ' World and all the wonders that will 
be," '*The one far-off divine event to which the 
whole creation moves," is one of " Vast republics," 
a "Parliament of man," of "Federations and of 
Powers." 



EXHIBITION OF i8gr. 347 

He regards revolution not as the right of op- 
pressed peoples, but as the synonym of folly. That 
marvelous uprising of France which struck the 
world with awe and inspired the lurid pen-pictures 
of Carlyle, Tennyson calls the ' ' red fool-fury of the 
Seine." It is not by fire and sword, but *'From 
precedent to precedent " that ' ' Freedom slowly 
broadens down." He fails to see that great strides 
in the onward march of humanity might never have 
been taken had men not dared death for truth and 
right. 

Like all the thinkers since thought was born, 
Tennyson has asked the '' Whence," the ''Why," 
the "Whither." There have been times when 
empty echo was the only ansv/er. 

It is meet for a poet to whom the past, the pres- 
ent, and the future, are as one, ' ' To sit as God, 
holding no form of creed but contemplating all." 
But agnosticism does not satisfy Tennyson. He 
must have faith, though weak and shadowy. He 
sees mankind in the ' ' Vision of Sin " wallowing in 
the mire of wickedness, scoffing at virtue, friend- 
ship, liberty and God, but raising his eyes aloft he 
beholds on the mountain summit, "■ God make him- 
self an awful rose of dawn. " "A still small voice " 
taunts him with his misery and doubting ignorance, 
and no answer can he make, but, glancing through 
the casement, the soft sunlight of the Sabbath 
bathes him in its beauty, and a ' ' hidden hope " 



348 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

drives the voice away. The "In Memoriam" 
sounds the deepest depths of skepticism, but as time 
and a purified love heal the wounds of sorrow he 

"Trusts 
With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that can never be proved." 

The genius of Tennyson grasped the grand con- 
ception of the evolutionary philosophy. Looking 
backward over the shadowy and misty past before 
the ''Wild time coined itself into calendar, months 
and days," he sees the nebulous cloud from which 
our sun and system were evolved. He sees the 
genesis of life and the long development from monad 
to man. He recognizes the cruel law of human 
progress by which 

"The individual withers, and the world is more and more." 

The evil in the minds and hearts of men is the 
result of a brutal and savage state. To crown the 
man we must crucify the beast. This is the 
grandest truth that modern science has established 
for the enlightenment and elevation of humanit}^ 
Rejecting the dependence of man upon the super- 
human for mental and moral improvement, it has 
read the eternal lav/ written on the rocks, embla- 
zoned in starry splendor upon the heavens, taught 
by man himself, whether fettered by ignorance and 
superstition, or basking in the sun of civilization ; 
that human progress is by development ; that by 



EXHIBITION OF i8gi. 349 

conflict man has reached the eminence of the pres- 
ent ; that only by bitter conflict, with appetite and 
passion, with demons of heredity and giants of 
tyranny, can the summits of perfection be won at 
last. 

One of the truest of Tenn3^son's teachings is that 
progress is to be gained by treading continuously 
the path of duty, humble and lowly though it be. 
This is the great truth taught by the ''Golden 
Year." This is the fairest wreath which Tennyson 
lays upon the bier of Wellington. 

This progress must also be found in society, not 
in the hermit life of solitude. The soul in the 
' ' Palace of Art, " though surrounded by every grati- 
fication of sense, must seek the cottage in the vale 
ere life is worth the living. 

To do and not to dream, is another lesson of 
progress. In the picture of the * ' Lotos-Eaters '' 
the fate of dreamers is portrayed; in "Ulysses," 
the active and manly spirit that must door die. In 
one, the v/anderers, wearied with a world of work 
and wickedness, taste the opiate of forgetfulness, 
and dream away to the music of softly rippling 
waves and whispering breezes ; in the other, love 
of action urges on to further conflict and more 
glorious victory. 

" To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." 

Love has been a characterizing thread in the 



350 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

poetic fabric of all ages. In all its varied phases, 
from the ardent passion of youth which takes up 
the ' ' harp of Life " in " Locksley Hall " to the calm 
and matured love of a lifetime, which is voiced in 
reminiscence, ' ' across the walnuts and the wine, " it 
finds perfect expression in the poems of Tennyson. 
This love of lover, wife and friend lifts the heart of 
man to higher things. Without love, man is a 
wanderer in a barren waste ; with love, the oasis 
bursts upon his weary vision ; with love perfected 
and ennobled, the desert buds and blossoms into 
paradise. 

Tennyson would receive more homage from the 
world of thought to-day had he never penned the 
second *' Locksley Hall." The hero of the earlier 
poem, singing of the future of a world made beauti- 
ful in the present by the roseate coloring of youth- 
ful enthusiasm and a reciprocated passion, plunged 
into the abyss of despair when the loved one proves 
untrue, yet rising again to a nobler vision of human- 
ity and progress, is a picture that warms the heart 
and quickens the imagination, so that we too can see 
the golden future which will crown the efforts of 
the struggling present. But when sixty years have 
joined the past the vision is less glorious. Age and 
experience of man's suffering and sin have 
dampened the ardor and buoyancy of youth. But 
the conception of progress is not radically changed. 
Faith in God and man may be ^weaker, doubt and 



EXHIBITION OF i8gi. 3 5 1 

distrust may be stronger ; but in the end, again as 
in youth, there rings out to struggHng, suffering hu- 
manity the grand old rallying cry of ''Forward!" 

Such is Tennyson's conception of human progress, 
of the golden age which is to come. It is a concep- 
tion less inspiring than the prophecies of those 
poets of passion, whose divine songs sound like 
strains of martial music, to lead the march of hu- 
manity into the realm of freedom. Tennyson's 
view is less visionary, more prosaic, but more real. 
By obedience to law, by evolutionary development, 
by science ' ' grown to more, " by love ennobled, by 
individual duty done, by the help of the dim. and 
shadowy "Hand that guides, " the time will come 
when we can sing with the inspired poet in the 
halcyon days of life's springtime, 

' ' For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; 

— the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags 
were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 



EXHIBITION OF 1892. 

" Anglo-Saxon Freedom," 

John McCollum Curran, 
John Parker Martin. 

" James Russell Lowell, Author and Diplomatist," 
Charles Andrew Erasure, 

"The Founding of the German Empire," 

Thomas Newton Owen. 

" The Heroism of Christopher Columbus," 

Strother William Rice. 

"The Jews in Russia," 

Gregory Rosenblum. 

"The Railroad as a Force in Civilization." 



EXHIBITION OF 1893. 

' * Las Casas, the Apostle of the Indies, ' ' 

Harry Capron Allen. 

"The Pathos in the Life and Poetry of Heinrich Heine," 
Daniel WyEtte Burke. 

"Waterloo and Sedan," 

John Gailey Campbell, 
Nathaniel McGiffin. 

"Tennyson's Arthur as the Ideal Champion of Right," 
Charles Romeyn La Rue, 
Alexander Wouthrs. 

"Whittier, the Poet of Freedom." 

"The Gerrymander, its History, its Evil and its Cure." 



WATERLOO AND SEDAN. 



by NATHANIEL MC GIFFIN. 



SOME one has said, ' ' Great men and great events 
are the fixed points and peaks of history." 
Whether or not that statement be universally good, 
it certainly is true as applied to France. Two 
names and two events mark important epochs in 
her history. Two men, animated by kindred am- 
bitions, terminated their careers on two historic 
battlefields, Waterloo and Sedan. 

The history of the French people is a tragedy. 
The shining of the epaulette has dazzled the eyes 
of the volatile Frenchman, and his ears have ever 



354 T-HE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

responded to the music of the drum. The new 
philosophy of Voltaire and Rousseau, coloring the 
thought and literature of the age, appealed to his 
imagination, fired his susceptive nature, poisoned 
the wellsprings of royalty, conceived and brought 
forth the French Revolution. For ten years, 
amidst blood and flame and scaffold, while over- 
throwing a monarchy, rejecting three constitutions, 
making and unmaking assemblies, borne on a frail 
craft in the tempest of her fears, France cast about 
for her pilot. A Corsican lieutenant, whom for- 
tune had placed at Toulon, asked to be made first 
consul, and Napoleon Bonaparte was master of a 
nation. 

' ' The Child of Destiny " had faith in his ' ' star, " 
and France, intoxicated by the glory of a soldier, 
became his slave. Her people, pausing in the 
midst of freedom, halted to enthrone this adventurer. 
The grim genius ' ' let slip the dogs of war. " The 
curtain of oblivion was dropped over the past, and 
* ' Liberty, equality and fraternity " bowed to the 
sword. At Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram, 
France drank from the cup of glory ; but he who 
holds the winds in his hand vetoed the ambition of 
a man, and within the snow-girt kingdom of the 
czar, France finds a grave for half a million men ; 
the battle of Leipsic restored the Bourbons to the 
throne of their fathers ; Bonaparte is sent to Elba, 
and Europe breathes again. 



EXHIBITION OF iSgj. 355 

It takes more than nine months to correct the 
wrongs of a decade, and the French people, fasten- 
ing the blame on the Bourbon king, again turn to- 
ward ''The Child of Destiny." The electric step 
of the Corsican on the southern shore of France 
thrills the nation ; the soldier responds to the silent 
call of his old commander, and France is again im- 
perial. 

Now begins the mighty struggle which is to de- 
cide the fate of nations. The Allied Powers arm 
for the defence of Europe and the invasion of 
France. Napoleon prepares to meet them. On 
the sixteenth of June, eighteen hundred fifteen, the 
opposing armies strike swords at Quatre Bras and 
Ligny. The following day Wellington falls back to 
Waterloo ; Napoleon follows, and Grouchy pursues 
the retreating army of Bliicher. 

It had rained hard on the night preceding the 
battle, and on the morning of that eventful day the 
armies rose from their dripping bivouac and faced 
each other. What a spectacle ! Two ridges 
crov/ned with the best troops of Europe ! Silently, 
like the Greeks of old, Wellington's soldiers massed 
in squares before the forests of Seignies. On the 
ridge beyond, stretching out like huge, glittering 
serpents, long columns of French take their places 
in line of battle. Behind these and a little above, 
like sentinels of death, along the crest of the ridge, 
stand two hundred and fifty cannon, ready to be- 



356 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK, 

gin the harvest of death, while in the rear of all is 
the '' Old Guard," veterans of a hundred battles. 

Between eleven and twelve o'clock the first gun 
is fired from the French centre ; six thousand men 
charge the English fortifications at Hougoumont ; 
Ney flings the French right against the English left ; 
and the famous battle of Waterloo has begun. For 
eight hours a hundred and fifty thousand men 
struggle for the mastery of a continent. At the 
chateau of Hougoumont, three thousand English- 
men close their eyes in death, but the brave follow- 
ers of Wellington stubbornly hold their ground. 
Again and again, Napoleon's veteran legions hurl 
themselves against the compact squares of Welling- 
ton, and as often are repulsed. About five o'clock 
the intrepid Ney drew his sword and placed him- 
self at the head of three thousand French horsemen. 
As the mighty squadrons moved, shouts of ' ' Long 
live the Emperor " reverberated from ridge to ridge. 
The iron duke knew that the decisive moment had 
come. ' ' Remember Old England, " cried Welling- 
ton to his comrades in arms. For two hours the 
fierce cuirassiers hovered round the English centre, 
and amid the whirlwind of flashing swords seven 
out of the thirteen British squares were cut to pieces. 
Had Napoleon won the day } At that moment, 
when the star of his success kissed the zenith, 
Bliicher's army marched with glittering bayonets 
and unscratched banners upon the field of conflict ; 



EXHIBITION OF i8gs. 357 

grandly and heroically the ''Old Guard" died; 
night drew a curtain over the field of Waterloo, and 
the little corporal, the idolized emperor, the mighty 
Napoleon was a fugitive. 

Thus closed the active career of the most striking 
character ever produced by any land or nation. 
The Celtic fickleness of his people made Napoleon 
the Great a possibility. But calculation overcame 
genius, and brilliant daring was forced to succumb 
to steadfast endurance. 

The defeat at Waterloo was a bitter blow to 
France. Humbled in the midst of her renown she 
accepts the forced gift of monarchy. The restor- 
ation of eighteen hundred fifteen burdened her with 
a heavy heritage. Renouncing the old traditions 
of the Bourbons, she was governed by constitu- 
tional kings. With monstrous strides science, edu- 
cation and enlightened thought swept over Europe. 
France had profited by her chastisement. But in 
eighteen hundred forty-eight the fever of revolu- 
tion springs up again. ' ' Liberty, equality, fra- 
ternity," words almost forgotten, again appeal to 
her impulsive people. Once more hero worship 
displaces reason ; France leaps at the imperial 
name, and by a coup d'etat Louis Napoleon steps 
from the presidency of a republic to the throne 
of an empire. 

Across the Rhine the German states had out- 
grown their weakness. From the battle smoke 
of Sadowa, William I. came forth the leader of 



358 THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 

Germany. The Fatherland was to be united. 
France, burning with jealousy, clamored for war. 
Her weak emperor was surrounded by treason. 
Seeking a pretext for hostility he said to Germany, 
** No member of the House of Hohenzollern shall 
sit on the throne of Spain. " William's answer was 
defiance. The arrogant Frenchman cried, * ' On to 
Berlin." The sturdy German answered, "On to 
Paris." Deceived by his generals. Napoleon, in- 
stead of placing himself at the head of a mighty 
army, found his country unprepared. From the 
Fatherland beyond the Rhine came four splendid 
armies. The borderland of France becomes the 
scene of carnage. In quick succession the French 
strongholds fall into the hands of the enemy ; Ba- 
zaine is shut in at Metz and MacMahon is driven 
with fearful rout into Sedan. Waterloo is to be 
repeated ; but there is no Ney to charm by his dar- 
ing leadership ; there is no ' ' Old Guard " to fight 
and die, while an enemy applauds their loyalty to 
a defeated commander. Like two ponderous iron 
jaws the Prussian armies contract round the dis- 
heartened French ; vainly they attempt to break 
the line of Teutonic steel ; Emperor Louis, the 
embodiment of despair, looks up at the frowning 
muzzles of the five hundred cannon that crown the 
encircling hills ; for hours the storm of death rages 
about him ; at last, knowing that his empire is 
at an end, torn with anguish, sick with disease, 
and horrified at the wanton slaughter of his country- 



EXHIBITION OF iSgs. 359 

men, the emperor of France strikes his colors to 
the Hohenzollern king, and eighty-three thousand 
Frenchmen lay down their arms. 

Waterloo and Sedan mark the downfall of two 
empires ; one bore upon its escutcheon the motto 
* ' Divine Right ; " the other emblazoned the battle 
call of republican liberty. The battle of Water- 
loo ended in glory to the arms of France. Her 
soldiers died in the ranks of their foes, and the 
' 'Old Guard never surrendered ; " the battle of 
Sedan terminated with humiliation and shame. At 
Waterloo the French were beaten ; at Sedan they 
were trapped. Two emperors reaped ' ' the fruits 
of disappointment," and both died with the curse 
of their countrymen upon their heads. 

The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the dis- 
mal ending of the campaign which terminated at 
Sedan, both taught needed lessons to the citizens 
of our sister republic. In this century of strife 
France has never lost courage. A republic for 
twenty-two years, though linked with grand mis- 
takes, she still leads the Old World towards 
"Freedom's holy light." Having satisfied the de- 
mands of her conquerors, and blessed with recuper- 
ative power, she stands to-day with her loins girded 
for a new race. If undisturbed in peace, liberty 
and order will crown the efforts that have been 
foiled by the throes of war. 

"Her open eyes desire the truth. 
The wisdom of a hundred years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 
Keep dry their light from tears." 



SUBJECTS OF 1894. 

"The Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods." 

" Gordon and Havelockas Types of Christian Soldiers." 

"The Agitator in American History." 

"The American Locomotive Engineer." 

"The Debt of Liberty to the Netherlands." 

" George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform." 



INDEX TO SPEAKERS. 



ACKLER, L. C, '89. 
Adams, S. H., '63. 
Adams, S. H., '91. 
Allen, H. C, '93. 
Alien, S. D., '78. 
Allen, T. H., '79. 
Allison, C. E., '70. 



BACHMAN, R. L., '71. (Prize 
Baker, B. W., '66. 
Baldwin, E., '67. 
Barber, C. L., '76. 
Barrows, C. D., '69. 
Bartlett, U., '85. 
Bates, W. H., '65. 
Beach, W. H., '60. 
Beard, T., '56. 
Bigelow, D. W., '65. 
Bingham, R. S,, '60. 
Bissell, L. P., '63. 
Blackmar, A. E., '74. 
Bogue, H. P. v., '63. (Prize.) 
Bostwick, W. L., '58. 
Bradbury, A. U., '62. 
Bradford, A. H., '67. 
Bradford, W., '85. (Prize.) 
Branch, O. E., '73. (Prize.) 
Brandt, S. C, '89. 
Breed, D. R., '67. 
Briggs, R. C, '73. 
Brodie, J. F., '76. 
Brookins, A., '60. 
Browne, S. W., '2>'j, 
Buckingham, C. L., '62. (Prize.) 
Budlong, F. D., '77. 
Burgess, E. S., '79. 
Burke, D. W. E., '93. 



Burke, J. E.. '55. (Prize.) 
Burrill, S. P., '85. 

CALLAPIAN, PI. W., '78. 
Campbell, J. G., '93. 
Campbell, W. F., '83. 
Chapin. C. W. E., '89. 
Chesebrough, T. W., '61. 
Child, F. S., '75. 
)Childs, A. L., '61. 
'Clarke, S. T., '62. 
Cockerill, H. W., '77. 
Cole, C. B., '87. (Prize.) 
Coventry, T. L., '91. 
Crumby, G. F., '79. 
Cummins, E. W., '71. 
Cunningham, H. D., '66. 
Curran, E., '56. 
Curran, H. H., '62. 
Curran, J. M., '92. » 
Curtis, M.M., '80. 

DANIELS, H. E. C, '68. 
Dautel, E. W., '2>z. 
Davis, J. A., '78. 
De Shon, W. H., '70. 
Dewey, F. L.,'82. 
Diven, G. M., '57. 
Duguid, H. L., '56. 
Dunham, G. E., '79. 

CDDY, S. W., '75. 

i-' Eells, H. P., '76. (Prize.] 

Ellis, G. W., '78. 

Enos, E. A., '74. (Prize.) 

Erdman, A., '58. 

Erdman, W. J., '56. 

Evans, A. H., '82. (Prize.) 

Everett, J. E., '88. 



362 



THE CLARK PRIZE BOOK. 



CAIRFIELD, W. B., '55. 
*■ Ferguson, J. A., '65. 
Fisher, W. H., '64. 
Fitch, E., '86. 
Fitch, T. W., '69. 
Fowler, J. C., '69. (Prize.) 
Erasure, C. A., '92. 
Frink, H. A., '70. 
Frost, J. E., '71. 

GARDINER, C. A., '80. 
(Prize 
George, M. W., '75. 
Glover, O. R., '69. 
Gray, C. O., '90. 
Greves, J. S., '61. (Prize.) 
Griffith, W. M., '80. 

HART, W., '55. 
Hawley, C. A., '59. 
Heacock, S. G., '80. 
Head, F. H., '56. (Prize.) 
Hemenway, C. C., '74. 
Hemmens, H. J., '87. 
Hoadley, J. H., '70. (Prize.) 
Hodges, G., '77. 
Holley, J. M.,'66. 
Hopkins, A. G.,'66. 
Hopkins, J. H., '72. 
Hotchkiss, W. H., '86. 
Howe, H. C, '58. 
Hoyt, A. K., '63. 
Hoyt, A. S., '72. 
Hoyt, C. S., '77. 
Hughes, R. J., '90. (Prize.) 
Hughes, R. W., '81. (Prize.) 
Hyland, J. A., '75. 

JACKSON, W. H., '55. 
«J Janes, C. F., '68. 
Jenkins, H. D., '64. 
Johnson, B. W., '65. 
Johnson, H., '57. (Prize.) 
Jones, G. M., '88. 
Jones, H. O., '82. 
Jones, J. D., '61. 



Josiyn, F. W., '8r. 
Judson, A. B., '87. 



LfELLOGG, F. H.. '67. 
1^^ Kendall, C. N., '82. 
Kessinger, A, R., '^%, 
Kingsley, C. R., '78. 
Knox, C. E., '56. 
Knox, G. W.,'74. 
Knox, J. H., '68. 



J AING, P. A., 'So. 

^ La Rue, C. R., '93. 

Lathrop, W. A., '85. 

Lee, D. C., '91. 

Lee, D. M., '63 

Lee, J. B., '86. (Prize.) 

Lewis, J. J., '64. 

Lewis, J. R., '60. (Prize.) 

Lewis, W. E., '75. 

Lloyd, H. P., '59. (Prize.) 

Love, A. L., '76. 

Love, H. M.. '83. 

Love, W. D., '73. 

Loving, H. v., '59. 

Lyon, C. J., '67. 

Lyon, G. F., '72. 

McADAM, A. L., '88. (Prize.) 
McAdam, G. G., '?>z. 
McAdam, W. C., '77. 
McGiffin, N., '93. (Prize.) 
McLean, J., '62. 
McMaster, PL, '76. 
Martin, C. G., '83. (Prize. ^ 
Martin, J. P., '92. 
Mathews, E. D.,'73. 
Millard, C. S., '66. (Prize.) 
Miller, G. D.,'89. 
Miller, M. R., '68. (Prize.) 
Miller, S., '60. 
Miller, S. D., '90. 
Mills, F. v., '^7. (Prize.) 
Miner, W. €.,''82. 
Montross, J. P., '87. 



INDEX TO SPEAKERS. 



?>^Z 



Morey, J. W., '79. 
Morris, E. C.,'89. 
Morron, J. H., '59. 

NILES, J. S., '86. 
North. G. T., '6r. 
North, S. N. D"., '69. 
Northrup, A. J., '58. 
Northrup, M. H., '60. 
Norton, G., '66. 



O' 



BRIEN, J. W., '73. 



Seward, C. K., '75. (Prize.) 
Seward, F. D., '58. (Prize.) 
Seymour, A. S., '57. 
Sherwin, S. A , '67. (Prize.) 
Sicard, G. J., '58. 
Sicard, S., '86. 
Silvernail, J. P., '74. 
Simmons, H. M., '64. (Prize.) 
Skinner, N. N., '83. 
Smith, B. G., '72. (Prize.) 
Smith, P. H., '74. 
Smyth, D. D., '90. 



Ostrander, L. A., '65. (Prize. )Squires, W. H., 'i 



Owen, T. N., '92. 

PALMER, C. J., '71. 
Parsons, H. H., '82. 
Parsons, W. L., '78. (Prize.) 
Peck, B. L., '91. (Prize.) 
Peck, H. R., '59. 
Peck, W., '64. 
Perkins, F., '89. (Prize.) 
Philhps, A. C, '71. 
Pierson, A. T., '57. 
Porter, L. L., '73. 
Pratt, L. S., '81. 

RICE, S. W., '92. 
Robinson, D. J.,'57. 
Robinson, W. M., '57. 
Robson, F. H., '87. 
Root, E., '64. 
Root, E. W., '62. 
Root, W., '90. 

Rosenblum, G., '92. (Prize.) 
Rudd, R. S., '79. (Prize.) 
Ruggles, E. W., '85. 

SACKETT, F. A., '70. 
Scollard, C, '8r. 
Scott, J. E., '59. 



Starr. G. H., '6r. 
Steere, S. B., '55. 
Stevens, E. L., '90. 
Stocking, S. W., '55. 
Stone, C. L., '71. 
Stringer, E. C, '76. 
Stryker, M. W., '72. 
Swaney, S. W., '70. 

T^ALCOTT, S. H.,'69. 
1 Tolles, H. B., '86. 
Tufts, J. F., '72. 

\/ANCE, H. A., 88'. 
V Van Norden, C, '63. 



WARD, P., '91. 
Weaver, G. M., 
Webster, W. O., '65. 
White, H. P., '81. 
Whiteman, A. J,, 'Si. 
Willard, J. H.,'68. 
Willard, M. G., '68. 
Winchell, W. B., '80. 
Wood, I. F., '85. 
Wouters, A., '93. 



'91. 



BY 



amilton Alumni 



Rev. Myron Adams, '63. 

The Continuous Creation. An application of the Evoltitionary Philosophy 
to the Christian Religion. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.50. 
" The whole volume is full of suggestion, and bravely puts itself 

alongside the drift of to-day's thought among men who really think. 

We heartily commend it to any who are seeking new bottles and new 

wine. It is candid, spiritual, scientific."— ^(^^i*!?;^ Transcript. 

Creation of the Bihle. Crown 8vo, $1. 50. 

Exact information concerning the latest conclusions of advanced 
biblical study, is something many persons have desired who are without 
opportunity or leisure to consult original sources, and by all such Mr. 
Adams' book will be warmly welcomed. — The Dial, Chicago. 



Franklin H. Head, '56. 



Shakespeare's Insomnia, and tlie Caiises Thereof. i6mo, illuminated parch- 
ment paper, 75 cents. 



Government Revenue, especially the American System. An argument 
against the Fallacies of Free Trade. i2mo, $1.50. 

A series of admirably compact and convincing essays on the effect 

of a protective system in developing the productiveness, wealth, and 

power of a nation. It takes high moral, political, and social grovmd- 

— Troy (N. Y.) Ti7jtes. 

New York. In American Commonwealths Series. With Map. 2 vols. 

i6mo, gilt top, $2.50. 

Mr. Roberts has put into less than 800 pages all the truly significant 
events which have gone to the making up of New York history from 
1524 to the present day. — N. V. Journal of Commerce. 



Clinton Scollard, '8i. 



Song-s of Sunrise Lands. i6mo, gilt top, $1.00. 

A collection of verse inspired by Mr. Scollard's travels in the Orient 
and completely eastern in motive and color. Fitness and felicity of 
phrasing, the musician's nice ear for melody, and much gracefulness of 
form characterize the work. — Hartford Coiirant. 

Mr. Clinton Scollai'd is one of the most agreeable, competent and 
productive of the younger American poets. . . . The adequacy, pre- 
cision and grace of his verse merit high praise. — Literary Worlds Boston. 



IMPORTANT BOOKS BY HAMILTON ALUMNI. 



Charles Dudley Warner, '51. 

In the Levant. Holiday Edition. With a new Portrait of Mr. Warner, 
and about twenty-five full-page photogravures, and decorative head- 
pieces and initials. Bound from designs by Mrs. Henry Whitman. 
2 vols. 8vo, gilt top, $5.00. 

The Same. Crown 8vo, f 2.00. 

My Winter on the Nile. New Edition, revised, with Index. Crown 8vo, 

$2.00. 

Mr. William C. Prime, speaking of ' My Winter on the Nile ' and ' In 
the Levant ' said : " Whether one has been in the East, or is going to the 
East, or does not expect ever to go, these books are of all travel books 
the best, because most truthful and companionable guides, having in 
them the very atmosphere and sunlight of the Orient." 

My Summer in a Garden. Illustrated by Darley. Square i6mo, $1 50. 
The Same. Riverside Aldine Edition. i6mo, $1.00. 

Charles Lamb might have written it if he had had a garden.— ^.v^r- 
terly Review^ London. 

Saunterings. iSmo, Si-oo. 

Travel Sketches in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, 
Bavaria, and Italy. 

Backlog Studies. Essays. Illustrated by Hoppin. i6mo, $1.25. 
The Same. Riverside Aldine Edition. i6mo. Si. 50. 

Full of good things as a pudding is full of plums.— P/^/V.^. BuUctin. 

Baddeck, and that Sort of Thing. Travel Sketches. iSmo, $1.00. 

One of the freshest and most enjoyable books of the kind we have 
ever read. — The Ckzirchi/ian, New Vo> k. 

Being a Boy. Illustrated by " Champ." i6mo, $1.25. 

It is an elderly boy's reminiscences and reflections upon boyhood, 
the actual boyhood which he lovingly remembers. The book is full of 
the dry, unexpected humor of which Mr. Warner is a master, . . full 
of clever pictures, too.— A^^w York Evening Post. 

In the Wilderness. Adirondack Essays. New Edition, enlarged. i8mo, 
$1.00. 

Treading over the familiar ground of the summer tourist, but reveal- 
ing a new beauty in the forest, a new glory in the river, a new joy in the 
heart of Nature.— yV^w York Tribune. 

Washington Irving. In American Men of Letters. Si. 25 
A Roundabout Journey. i2mo, $1.50. 
On Horseback. i6mo, I1.25. 

Sold by all Booksellers. Sent postpaid, by 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston. 



IMPORTANT BOOKS BY HAMILTON ALUMNI. 



Clinton Scollard, '8i. 



On Sunny Shores, lamo, 300 pages, illustrated. Cloth, $1.00. 

Professor Clinton Scollard will issue this fall a further description of 
his poetical pilgrimages, entitled " On Sunny Shores." It will be pub- 
lished as a companion volume to his popular " Under Summer Skies," 
the two works complementing each other. The charm of style and 
daintiness of touch shown in the former book of travels is more than 
maintained. 

Under Summer Skies. Cloth 8vo, 300 pages. $1.00. 

''These records of his wanderings are written in an engaging and 
unpretentious style ; they abound in poetic descriptions of persons and 
localities, and here and there throughout the volume are delightful lyrics 
which lend an added grace to the prose." — The Critic, New York. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Sent postpaid, by 

CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO., 

67 Fifth Ave., New York City. 

Rev. Charles Elmer Allison, '70. 

A Historical Sketch of Hamilton College. 8vo, Si.oo. 

*' This book is the outgrowth of a loving enthusiasm that began with 
the purpose of writing an illustrated newspaper article. This kept 
growing under the author's hands until an attractive volume of nearly 
one hundred pages brings into compact, available form many important 
facts and many incidents and reminiscences that give to history a pic- 
turesque reality. The ninety-five illustrations have cost much good 
mone5% and they are worth much more than they have cost. Mr. Alli- 
son's enterprise and good taste are especially commendable in this direc- 
tion. He has brought together what was never before accomplished, a 
complete group of the eight presidents of Hamilton College. The por- 
trait of President Sereno E. Dwight should have appeared in the Half- 
Century Book of 1862, but it could not then be obtained. It was reserved 
for the credit of Mr. Allison to find this beautiful portrait in Boston. It 
will be a welcome sight to all who love the college, and the inspiration of 
a countenance like that ' which limners gave to the Beloved Disciple.' " 
— Htnniiten Literary Monthly. 

Sent postpaid, by 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO. 

182 FIFTH AVE, NEW YORK. 



IMPORTANT BOOKS BY HAMILTON ALUMNI. 



O. E. Branch, '73. 



National Series of Speakers. I, Primary Speaker, Boards, 50 cents. II. 

Junior Speaker, Cloth, 75 cents. III. Advanced Speaker, Cloth, $1.25. 

These entirely new book*; contain the very freshest and most unhackneyed selection 
of good speakabie pieces now accessible to seekers after new subjects for declamation 
and recitation. They are tjraded t« meet the need of persons of all ajjcs. 

"One great merit of the books is the fact that t.'ie pieces are nearly all new." 
— Boston Transcript- 

" They are fresh, short, pointed, simple, wrll arranged and within the comprehen- 
sion and speaking power of young people."— yowrjia^ of Education. 



Rev. F. S. Child, '75 



Be Strong to Hope. i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

A book of comfort and good cheer for the weary, burdened and 
depressed ; strong and helpful, bringing tranquility to the troubled, and 
quickening the discouraged into the very mood and power of victory. 

Friendship of Jesus. i6mo, cloth, white and gold, 50 cents. 

"' A beautiful little volume.' It v/ill appeal strongly to all readers, 
on the profound and inspiring love which Jesus exercised toward young 
and old!^" — Utica Herald. 

" Strong and fervent words. The Great Friend comes near in the 
words that breathe His truth."— Priri-. Stryker., 0/ Hamilton Coile^f. 

Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., '57. 

The Crisis of Missions, or, The Voice out of the Cloud. i6mo, paper, 35 
cents. Cloth, §1.25. 

The Divine Enterprise of Missions. A series of Lectures delivered at New 
Brunswick, N. J., before the Theological Seminary of the Refoi'med 
Church in America, upon the " Graves " Foundation in i8gi. i6mo, 
cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 

Eyangelistic Work in Principle and Practice. i6mo, cloth, $1.25. 

The Divine Art of Preaching. i6mo, cloth, gilt top, 75 cents. 

Love in Wealth, or The Perfection of God's Judgments. An address 
before the Mildmay Conference, London, Eng. Leatherette, gilt top, 
35 cents. 

The Heart of the Gospel. Twelve Sermons, delivered at the Metropolitan 
Taberna«le, London, Eng. i6mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 

The One Gospel, or. The Combination of the Narratives of the Four 
Evangelists in One Complete Record. lamo, flexible cloth, red edges, 
75 cents. Limp Morocco, full gilt, $2.00. 

Stumbling Stones Removed from the Word of God. i8mo, cloth, 50 cents. 



The above Books sent postpaid, on receipt of the price by 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., Publishers, 

5&7E. 16TH ST., NEW YORK. 



IMPORTANT BOOKS BY HAMILTON ALUMNI. 



" The Tongue is Mightier than the Pen. " 

READING AND SPEAKING. 

Familiar Talks to Young' Men who would Speak Well in Public. By 
Brainard Gardner Sinitli, Professor of Orator3% Hamilton College. 
Cloth, 172 pages. By mail, 70 cents. 

The impossibility of finding practical text-books on elocution has 
brought the siibject into disrepute. It was a realization of this fact that 
prompted the author of " Reading and Speaking " to publish methods 
which experience had taught him would bring the best results in the 
class-room. His book is more accurately defined hy the sub-title, "Famil- 
iar Talks to Young Men who would Speak Well in Public." In a simple, 
direct, conversational way the subject is treated as both a science and 
an art. 

The aim of the book is to help young men to a natural, comfortable, 
manlj^, forceful manner of speech in public. To accomplish this, the 
author makes many suggestions not usuallj'' found in print. He sug- 
gests methods whereby the reader may ascertain for himself what faults 
ne has: faults of breathing, faults of articulation, faults of voice pro- 
duction, faults of manner, faults of gesture and the like. The reader is 
also told how these faults may be cured. 

The Opinion of Thomas Wentv/orth Higginson, 

" I am very glad that you are interesting j^ourself in training young 
men to speak in public. In my opinion there is no part of training more 
important in a country like ours." 

D. C. ME ATM &C0., PUBLISHERS. 

Boston, New York and Chicago. 



Hon. C. C. Camp, '58. 

Labor, Capital and Money ; Their Just Relations. i2mo, cloth $1.00. 

D. W. LERCn. PUBLISHER. 

Bradford, Pa, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 785 176 7 ^1 



